even before she left Egypt.
In due time, the LORD revealed the Tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, and the Levitical priesthood of Aaron, plus the many ordinances for congregational worship involving (bloody) sacrifices. The whole nation of Israel formed one congregation, the renewed Church. Church and nation were one, with ecclesiastical and civil laws. Among the twelve tribes fashioned by the sons of Jacob, the LORD brought out the Abrahamic unity of His people.
At Mount Sinai, upon covenant renewal, the LORD instructed Moses and Israel to build the Tent of Meeting, in order to centralize worship and in unity magnify the glory of God. A central sanctuary, the Tent of Meeting, became a structure of extraordinary beauty, particularly because of the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant with its mercy seat. Exod 25:22, “There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.” The most remarkable aspect of all this was the central prophecy of the covenant, a new prophet, the Messiah, Deut 18:15–22.
At the conclusion of the Tabernacle construction its significance showed. Exod 40:34, “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.” About this Tabernacle the LORD willed Israel, the Church, to gather at his command, also on Sabbath days.
With the Tabernacle the LORD commanded precise ritual, particularly with regards to the sacrifices, as he had with the construction of the Tent of Meeting, in order that through these ceremonies Israel worship him with all of heart, soul, mind, and strength, which applied no less to the later Temple.
Temple construction under Solomon was as meticulous as the Tabernacle’s. The Temple, even as the Tent of Meeting, was a building of extraordinary beauty, a reflection of the glory of the LORD, with the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, and the Ark of the Covenant, with its solidity and beauty described in 1 Kgs 6:1–36. As at the time of the completion of the Tent of Meeting, so also at the conclusion of the Temple construction, “. . . the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD,” 1 Kgs 8:11b.
In the context of David’s reign, with an eye already on Solomon, the LORD promised a son, the central prophecy at that time. 2 Sam 7:12, “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.” The Christological interpretation of this text, the only sound one, refers to the coming of the LORD in the flesh, at the time of the Incarnation.
Upon the Exile the returnees, under the ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah, rebuilt the Temple, a less imposing and a less beautiful structure. The LORD then called his people to continue the nature of the Church and her worship as given under Moses. A point that may be made here is: the care with which the LORD commanded the Tabernacle/Temple construction serves as an analogy for the way he by the Spirit and the word in the New Testament dispensation assembles the Church.
When also the second Temple became obsolete on account of progress in the LORD’s revelation of the Church, he altered the nature of the New Testament temple forever. Two places may be mentioned. 1) 1 Cor 3:17b, “For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.” 2) 1 Pet 2:5, “. . . and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Instead of the stone and gold of Solomon’s Temple, the New Testament Temple, the Church, consists of people. But this brings us to Christ, closer to the New Church.
---
Israel throughout the Old Testament dispensation was, on the whole, a unity, a nation; Church and State were one. The split between Judah/Benjamin and the Ten Tribes, 1 Kgs 11, was healed in a way when Ezra and Nehemiah led remnants of both Judah and the Ten Tribes back to Jerusalem, as Jeremiah prophesied. Jer 30:3, “For behold, days are coming, says the LORD, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the LORD, and I will bring them back to the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it.”
At issue: because of the covenant prophecies, notably the central one, regarding the Messiah, completed in Christ Jesus, the LORD continued the renewal of the Old Church from generation to generation, in preparation for the New Church.
Bridge Words
In the Old Testament transition to the New the Holy Spirit developed names specific for the Church of the second dispensation. In the Old Testament appear two such names:
1) qahal, from qal, which means to call. Qahal expressed the actual meeting together of the people of Israel about the Tabernacle or the Temple, and equals the Greek for church, ekklesia.7 Essentially, qahal stands for: assembly, congregation, convocation, company, Gen 49:6; Deut 9:10; Judg 21:5, 8; etc.
2) ‘edhah, from ya ‘adh, which means to appoint, to meet, come together (at a specified place).8 Applied to Israel, ‘edhah constitutes the congregation formed by the people of the covenant, or even representative heads, assembled or not. A congregation remains such, whether in meeting together before the LORD on the day of rest or during the week. Ps 1:5; Exod 16:22; Josh 22:20; etc. ‘edhah may also mean a company, Ps 22:16, or a band, Ps 68:1.
3) qahal ‘edhah, the two joined, signifies the assembly of the congregation. For example, Exod 12:6, “. . . and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs in the evening.” Num 14:5; Jer 26:17; etc.
By all counts these are important descriptions, the significance of which the Author of the Bible carried over into the New Testament, in which there are also two words:
4) ekklesia, from ek and kaleo, has the sense to call out and generally applies to the Church of the New Testament.9 The noun ekklesia then means the (convened) assembly. It may apply to the gathered congregation on the day of rest; it may also apply to a congregation during the week. A congregation is a congregation seven days per week.
5) sunagoge (from sun and ago) has at basis the sense of: to come or bring together. In the New Testament this word is used exclusively for the gatherings of the Jews and/or the buildings designated for such public worship. Matt 4:23, “And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people.” Acts 13:14. In the New Testament dispensation the distinction between Church and Synagogue sharpened before AD 100, when John called the latter the synagogue of Satan, Rev 2:9, 3:9.
These bridge words bring out the line of the Church from the beginning of the Old Testament to the opening of the New Testament period.
Deviation
In the history of the Church and the struggle to understand progressive revelation a non-covenantal10 strand developed, Dispensationalism, with premillennial roots11 deep in strange Bible interpretation. Dispensationalism is: a theory disrupting the divine ordering of world history.
Dispensationalists divide world history most generally into seven segments, different ways in which God allegedly deals with people:
(1) the dispensation of innocence, i.e., the period before the Fall.
(2) the dispensation of conscience, i.e., the period immediate upon Adam’s Fall when knowledge of good
