church at Jerusalem and go over the whole matter again and then they were astonished

and upset too! "And when the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the

Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem,

they that were of the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest in to men

uncircumcised"--(i.e. Gentiles)--"and did eat with them" (11: 2, 3). God had willed in

the past that they were to be separated from the Gentile nations around. And so Peter had

to go over it all again to explain to them why, at this point, the Gentile had been brought

into blessing and the sharing of Israel's spiritual things (Rom. 15: 27).

This assembly most evidently knew nothing of the Church, the Body of Christ, where

the Jew ceases to be a person with covenant privilege with God, and the Gentile an equal

sharer of spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 3: 6; 1: 3).

We have seen that the opening chapters of the Acts of the Apostles continue the

earthly Kingdom purpose of God. The eleven disciples are instructed for 40 days by the

Lord Himself from the O.T. Scriptures, and this leads them to be concerned with the

restoration of Israel. Then Pentecost follows with the Divine explanation taken from

Joel's prophecy, which likewise is connected with the same restoration. We noted that

there could not have been any Gentile present or saved on the day of Pentecost, and that

Peter had to receive a special vision from the Lord to go to the Gentiles at all. Not only

this, but the mother church at Jerusalem knew nothing of Gentile salvation and Peter had

to give an account to them of his action in so doing. In other words, these early believers

knew nothing of a redeemed company where neither Jew or Gentile existed and all were

one in Christ both doctrinally and dispensationally, and this in spite of the opened

understanding that the Lord had given them and the filling of the Holy Spirit they had

Now we must pause and consider the Scriptural usage of the word `church', because,

if we get wrong ideas here, we shall not be in a position to understand the fullness of

God's great plan revealed in the N.T. This word is used in various ways. It can mean a

place of worship; it can also mean a denomination or a sect. It can mean professing

Christendom as a whole (and this is the way it is usually used in Christian circles); or,

Scripturally, it can designate a called-out company of the redeemed, quite irrespective of

what earthly label they may have. Now the N.T. never uses this word in those first three

ways. There were no buildings called churches in N.T. days. Believers met together in

the home, and that is why the home and its conditions was so important; it was the

meeting place for the local church. There were no ecclesiastical meeting places in the

early Christian centuries. Either it meant a local assembly of believers, or a group of

believers designated as the church of God or the Body of Christ. We must thus be careful

that we are getting a Scriptural idea of this word.