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independent organization. In connection with this the national boundaries of the Church were
swept away. What had up to this time been a national Church now assumed a universal
character. And in order to realize the ideal of world-wide extension, it had to become a
missionary Church, carrying the gospel of salvation to all the nations of the world. Moreover,
the ritual worship of the past made place for a more spiritual worship in harmony with the
greater privileges of the New Testament.
The representation given in the preceding proceeds on the assumption that the Church existed
in the old dispensation as well as in the new, and was essentially the same in both, in spite of
acknowledged institutional and administrative differences. This is in harmony with the
teachings of our confessional standards. The Belgic Confession says in Art. XXVII: “This Church
has been from the beginning of the world, and will be to the end thereof; which is evident from
the fact that Christ is an eternal King, which without subjects He cannot be.” In full agreement
with this the Heidelberg Catechism says in Lord’s Day XXI: “That the Son of God, out of the
whole human race, from the beginning to the end of the world, gathers, defends, and preserves
for Himself, by His Spirit and Word, in the unity of the true faith, a Church chosen to everlasting
life.” The Church is essentially, as was pointed out in the preceding, the community of believers,
and this community existed from the beginning of the old dispensation right down to the
present time and will continue to exist on earth until the end of the world. On this point we
cannot agree with those Premillenarians who, under the influence of a divisive
dispensationalism, claim that the Church is exclusively a New Testament institution, which did
not come into existence until the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and will
be removed from the earth before the beginning of the millennium. They like to define the
Church as “the body of Christ,” which is a characteristically New Testament name, and seem to
forget that it is also called “the temple of God” and “Jerusalem,” which are very decidedly
names with an Old Testament flavor, cf. I Cor. 3:16,17; II Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21; Gal. 4:26; Heb.
12:22. We should not close our eyes to the patent fact that the name “Church” (Heb. qahal,
rendered ekklesia in the Septuagint) is applied to Israel in the Old Testament repeatedly, Josh.
8:35; Ezra 2:65; Joel 2:16. The fact that in our translations of the Bible the Old Testament
rendering of the original is “gathering,” “assembly,” or “congregation,” while the New
Testament rendering of it is “Church,” may have given rise to misunderstanding on this point;
but the fact remains that in the Old Testament as well as in the New the original word denotes
a congregation or an assembly of the people of God, and as such serves to designate the
essence of the Church. Jesus on the one hand said that He would found the Church in the
future, Matt. 16:18, but also recognized it as an already existing institution, Matt. 18:17.
Stephen speaks of “the Church in the wilderness,” Acts 7:38. And Paul clearly testifies to the
spiritual unity of Israel and the Church in Rom. 11:17-21, and in Eph. 2:11-16. In essence Israel