92. The Church's Commencement

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 9
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“E. E. M.” It has been frequently stated in our pages, that the Church, properly so-called, began at Pentecost. The Church and the Jewish system could not possibly subsist together, for the simplest of all reasons, that the Jewish system demanded the rigid separation of Jew and Gentile, while the Church makes them both one. The precious mystery of the Church leads us right across the ruins of the middle wall of partition. It was therefore impossible that the truth respecting the Church could be revealed while the Jewish economy existed. That souls were quickened, saved, and blessed, from Adam down to the day of Pentecost, is blessedly true: whoever questioned it? But you find our Lord in Matt. 16 speaking of His Church as a future thing: '' On this rock I will build my Church.” If the Church had existed all along, He would have said,” I have built, or am building,” not “I will build.” As to the occurrence of the word “Church” in Acts 7, every student of Scripture is aware that it refers to the assembly or congregation of Israel, and has no more to do with the Church as spoken of in Ephesians, than the assembly which the town clerk of Ephesus dismissed, in Acts 19. The original word is the same in both passages. We must remember that God has many families in heaven and earth, and we must not seek to confound them, or make them out to be all one. The expression in Eph. 3:1515Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, (Ephesians 3:15) should he, “every family;” compare also Heb. 11:4040God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:40).