Ecclesiology, or the doctrine of the church, is said to be the "touchstone" or decisive test of dispensationalism.1 Charles C. Ryrie argues that the church is distinct and separate from Israel in two respects: (1) in the church the Gentiles are placed on equal footing with the Jews; and (2) Christ dwells within the church as His spiritual body.
The church must have been unknown in Old Testament times, he infers, because the apostle Paul calls her a "mystery" (see Eph. 3:4-6; Col. 1:25-27)* and explicitly refers to the church of Christ as a "new man" (Eph. 2:15), a creation that was the result of the death of Christ. The church is built upon Christ's resurrection and ascension (see chaps. 1:20-23; 4:7-13), and became operative only on the day of Pentecost (see Acts 2). Therefore, the church is not a subject of Old Testament prophecy, and "is not fulfilling Israel's promises." Consequently "Israel herself must fulfill them and that in the future." 2 The church will be raptured away from the world before God again deals with Israel. Ryrie concludes, "The essence of dispensationalism, then, is the distinction between Israel and the church."3 He appeals to 1 Corinthians 10:32 to confirm his thesis that "natural Israel and the church are also contrasted in the New Testament." 4
However, the question is not Does the New Testament contrast the church with "natural Israel"? but rather, Is the church called in the New Testament "the Israel of God," and is it presented there as the new Israel, the only heir of all God's promised covenant blessings for the present and the future? Further questions that should be examined are When exactly did the church begin according to Christ? And How do Christ and the New Testament writers actually apply God's ancient covenants with Abraham, with Israel, and with David?
Old Testament remnant concept
Dispensational theology accepts the fact that the Old Testament distinguishes between a national Israel and a spiritual Israel within that nation. Ryrie states, "This kind of distinction within the nation was often made in the Old Testament."' This is indeed a Biblical distinction of profound theological significance. The prophets expressed this distinction in their "remnant" idea, the heart and center of their eschatological perspectives.
Amos was the first prophet who rejected the popular idea that Israel as a national whole would be saved in the day of Yahweh's judgment of the world (see Amos 3:2; 9:1-4, 9, 10). He stressed the fundamental condition of Israel's religious response to the covenant promises: "Seek the Lord and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph" (chap. 5:6).
Only a "remnant" from national Israel would survive God's future judgment (see chaps. 3:12; 5:15). This "remnant of Joseph" would therefore be a religiously faithful remnant.
In Jerusalem the prophet Isaiah likewise announced that Israel, just like other nations, would fall under the Lord's punishing justice because of her religious apostasy from Yahweh and her social injustice (see Isaiah 10). Nevertheless, God would graciously save "the remnant of Israel," "the holy seed" in Zion in the purging fires of judgment (see chaps. 1:24-26; 4:2, 3; 6:13; 10:20-22). This holy remnant is "recorded for life" (chap. 4:3) as the heir of the election promises, because it is a believing remnant that trusts fully in Yahweh (see chaps. 10:20, 21; 30:15).
Both Amos and Isaiah reveal a surprising but essential characteristic of Israel's "remnant" promises: A remnant of Yahweh- believing Gentiles from all nations will also be drawn into the circle of the eschatological remnant of Israel and the house of David: " 'In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old; that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by name,' says the Lord who does this" (Amos 9:11, 12).
Amos predicted clearly that by Yahweh's sovereign will and act a remnant of non-Israelites, coming from Edom and all nations, will also share in the covenant promise of David. 6 Such Gentiles would, just like Israel, be called by the honorable name of Yahweh, and therefore belong to the people of Yahweh (cf. Deut. 28:10).
The prophet Isaiah unfolds even further how God's universal outreach to all the Gentiles will ultimately be fulfilled through a new Israel whose essential characteristic will be not ethnic descent from Abraham (the blood of Abraham), but the faith of Abraham, the worship of the Lord in spirit and truth. Isaiah envisions a future—after Israel's Babylonian exile—when two classes of people, foreigners and eunuchs, who were forbid den entrance into the worshiping assembly of Yahweh according to the law of Moses (see chap. 23:1-3), will be given the right to worship in the new temple on Mount Zion if they accept Yahweh and His covenant with Israel. " 'These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples'" (Isa. 56:7; cf. chap. 45: 20-25).
When Gentiles join themselves in faith and obedience to the Lord (see chap. 56:3), the God of Israel will give those foreigners within Israel "a monument and a name better than sons and daughters;. . . an everlasting name" (verse 5). In other words, believing Gentiles would enjoy the same rights and hopes of the covenant promises as believing Israelites. Israel's God will not limit His restoration of Israel to the Jewish people, but will also include believing Gentiles within the post-exilic Israel. "Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered" (verse 8).
In other words, the God of Israel reveals clearly that He will also gather Gentile believers into the fold of Israel. It becomes apparent that Isaiah uses his "remnant" motif in a profound spiritual sense.
The Old Testament scholar Edmond Jacob explains, "In Isaiah the remnant is essentially distinct from a purely political reality; it is essentially an Israel kata pneuma [according to the Spirit]." 7
The Old Testament scholar Claus Westerman states as his conclusion from Isaiah 56: "Membership of the community which worships Yahweh is now based upon resolve, a free affirmation of this God and of his worship. No longer is it thought of in national but individual terms. The chosen people has turned into the confessing community. ... As early as here we find present important elements of the New Testament's concept of community. . . . He 'gathers' Israel also from those who hitherto have not been able to belong to her." 8
Gerhard F. Hasel, in his dissertation The Remnant, considers the remnant motif in Isaiah to be "a key element of Isaiah's theology" and concludes, "He [Isaiah] does not know the distinction of a 'secular-profane' and a 'theological' remnant motif."—Page 401.
The prophet Micah unites the promise of a "remnant of Israel" (Micah 2:12), the new people of God, with the promise of the Messiah who would come out of Bethlehem (chap. 5:2). He will gather the remnant of Israel "like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture" (chap. 2:12). "He shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord" (chap. 5:4).
In summary, whenever the Old Testament prophets portray the eschatological remnant of Israel, it is always characterized as a faithful, religious community, which worships God with a new heart on the basis of the "new covenant" (see Joel 2:32; Zeph. 3:12, 13; Jer. 31:31-34; Eze. 11:16- 21). This faithful remnant of the end-time will become God's witnesses among all the nations to gather also non-Israelites, regardless of their ethnic origin, into the true worship and kingdom of the Lord (see Zech. 9:7; 14:16; Isa. 66:19; Dan. 7:27; 12:1-3).
The total picture of the Old Testament eschatological remnant reveals that Israel's covenant blessings as a whole will be fulfilled, not in unbelieving national Israel, but only in that Israel that is faithful to Yahweh and trusts in His Messiah. This remnant of Israel will incorporate the faithful remnants of all the Gentile nations.
The question remains, How will this prophetic Israel be realized in its historic fulfillment? Will it be fulfilled only after the second advent of Christ, during the millennium? What does the New Testament disclose about the Old Testament remnant?
New Testament remnant
For the eschatological fulfillment of the Old Testament remnant prophecies we must first ask the' Lord Jesus Christ how He, the true Interpreter, understood and interpreted Israel's covenant promises.
Although Christ said that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (see Matt. 15:24; notice, however, that Mark 7:27 adds "first"), and although He sent His twelve apostles first only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (see Matt. 10:5, 6), His future outlook included their mission to the Gentiles (see verse 18; Mark 13:10). Christ even stated explicitly that He had come to gather Gentile believers into the flock of Israel. Referring unmistakably to the "gathering" promise of Isaiah 56:8, He announced: " 'I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd'" (John 10:16; The New Scofield Reference Bible [N.S.B.] acknowledges the "other sheep" to be the Gentiles of Isaiah 56:8).
As the Messianic shepherd, Christ declares here that He was sent to fulfill Israel's covenant promises of the gathering of Israel. 9 As the Messiah He came to gather Israel to Himself (see Matt. 12:30), but more than that, to gather the Gentiles, even all men, to Himself (see John 12:32). This called for a decision of faith in Him as the Messiah of Israel. For this universal mission He called from Israel His twelve apostles who in their chosen number clearly represent the twelve tribes of Israel. By officially ordaining twelve disciples as His apostles (see Mark 3:14, 15), Christ constituted a new Israel, the Messianic remnant of Israel, and called it His church (see Matt. 16:18). In the ordination of the twelve, Christ founded His church as a new organism, with its own structure and authority, endowing her with " 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven'" (verse 19; cf. chap. 18:17). He designated His twelve apostles as the judges of " 'the twelve tribes of Israel' " in the future age (chap. 19:28; Luke 22:30). To this church He said: "'Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom'" (Luke 12:32; see Dan. 7:22, 27).
F. F. Bruce states that "Jesus' calling of disciples around Himself to form the 'little flock' who were to receive the kingdom . . . marks Him out as the founder of the new Israel." 10
G. F. Hasel concludes from Jesus' preaching of faith and repentance as the condition for entering the kingdom of God (see Mark 1:15), "It can hardly be conceived of anything but the beginning of the gathering of a remnant of faith along the lines of the remnant hopes of the OT prophecies." 11
Christ constitutes His church, not beside Israel, as dispensationalism asserts, but as the faithful remnant of Israel that inherits all the covenant promises, including the promise of the new earth, not just Palestine (see Matt. 5:5; cf. Rom. 4:13; 2 Peter 3:13). The church as it is in Christ will ultimately dwell together with the true Israel of the old dispensation in one and the same New Jerusalem (see Revelation 21). Gentile Christians will enter that city of God through twelve gates on which are written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (see verse 12). Yet the city has walls with foundations on which are written the names of the twelve apostles of Christ (see verse 14). What God has joined together, let no man separate!
Jesus has revealed the apocalyptic truth that His church would inherit the kingdom together with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. "'I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth'" (Matt. 8:11, 12; cf. Luke 13:28, 29).
From Christ's position we learn that His church is not separated in God's covenants from the Israel of God because it is the true remnant of Israel, the Messianic Israel, the heir of God. Christ's church is eternally separated only from a Christ-rejecting, natural Israel.
Christ's election and ordination of twelve apostles denies the position that His church began to operate only on the day of Pentecost. The church was already in existence, so that the new believers were explicitly "added" to her (see Acts 2:41). The most clear evidence of all that the church was not an unforeseen, unpredicted entity is the fact that everything that happened at Pentecost was in direct fulfillment of prophecy. Peter quotes Joel 2:28-32 (see Acts 2:16ff.) and adds, " The promise is to you and to your children [Jews] and to all that are far off [Gentiles], every one whom the Lord our God calls to him'" (verse 39).
He explains further, " 'And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came afterwards, also proclaimed these days'" (chap. 3:24). In other words, since Pentecost, God was bringing about the fulfillment of all Israel's prophecies about the exaltation of the Messiah to the right hand of God (see chap. 2:33) and of the Messianic gathering of the Israel of God. Thus the church is plainly prophesied in the remnant promises of the Old Testament as confirmed by these and other writings of the New Testament.
Notes:
1 C. C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today (Moody Press, 1965), pp. 132, 133.
2 ————, The Basis of the Premillennial Faith (Neptune: N.J.: Louizeaux Bros., 1966), p. 126.
3 ————, Dispensationalism Today, pp. 46, 47.
4 Ibid., p. 138.
5 Ibid.
6 See G. F. Hasei, The Remnant: The History and Theology of the Remnant Idea From Genesis to Isaiah, Andrews University Monographs, Vol. V (1980), pp. 207-215, for a fuller treatment of Amos 9:11, 12.
7 E. Jacob, Theology of the Old Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), p. 324.
8 C. Westermann, Isaiah 40-66. A Commentary. The Old Testament Library. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977), pp. 313-315.
9 See E. Achtemeier, The Old Testament and the Proclamation of the Gospel (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973), pp. 93, 94.
10 F. F. Bruce, in The New Bible Dictionary, ed. by J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 588.
11 G. F. Hasel, "Remnant," article in The International Standard Encyclopedia, Section III C 2.
* All Bible texts in this article are from the Revised Standard Version.
