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of them that goes beyond what `the prophets and Moses did say
should come'.
No. 9
Is the `Church' within the testimony of
the Law and the Prophets?
We have now considered Paul's teaching in connection with
the gospel, the inclusion of the Gentile, the hope, the gifts of the
Spirit, and the mysteries, and have found in all these instances
the words used in his defence before Agrippa to be literally true.
There is no need to lengthen this investigation unduly, and we
believe that the most exacting of our readers will be satisfied
with the list of subjects examined, if we conclude with some
consideration of the `church' and its relation to Old Testament
prophecy. By the church here we mean, of course, the church of
the early Acts and Paul's earlier epistles, and not the church of
the One Body as revealed in Ephesians.
It is common knowledge that the word translated `church' is
the Greek ekklesia, from ek, `out of', and kaleł, `to call'. The
term is used mainly in a New Testament setting, but Stephen
does not hesitate to speak of the nation of Israel called out from
Egypt in the fulfilment of God's purposes as the `church in the
wilderness' (Acts 7:38). Stephen was fully justified in the
choice of this word, for both the Septuagint Greek and the Old
Testament Hebrew contain the Greek and Hebrew equivalents in
abundance.
The New Testament writers did not invent the title of the
`church' neither did they invest it with entirely new attributes