Ekklesia and church

Posted : 4 Jul, 2013 06:24 PM

Ekklesia and church



If you define the church as being the elect, that follows dispensationalism more than scripture, even though Paul in Colossians 1: 24 says the Body of Christ is the ekklesia. There are important New Testament scriptures which do not identify that Israel which was transformed as the ekklesia, such as John 3: 1-6 on being born again, or Ephesians 2: 11-19, on the Gentiles who are once aliens from the commonwealth of Israel now made close to that Israel. In the texts where Paul deals with the issue of the identity of Israel transformed and another Israel which rejected Christ - in Romans 2:28-29, Romans 9: 6-8, Romans 11, and Galatians 4: 25-26 - he never says that those transformed in Christ or the Gentiles grafted in with them, in Christ, are the ekklesia. And there is that problem of what ekklesia means as opposed to what church has come to mean since Paul wrote.



Paul uses ekklesia in Ephesians 5: 23, "Christ is the head of the ekklesia," and in Colossians 1: 24, for example. Where he says "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church:" He means by "body. " the Body of Christ and says the Body is the ekklesia.



The one Body of Christ that scripture says must exist (John 10: 16, etc) is not that institution called the Church, though in the New Testament ekklesia is translated as church in the English translations later than the Tyndale Bible (1526), which consistently uses congregation." I am implying that ekklesia and what the Catholics and dispensationalists mean by the "church" are not the same thing."



The ekklesia in the New Testament almost always is an assembly, a meeting of Christians, or a congregation at a specific place. Paul sometimes uses ekklesia as a collective of many local congregations. But he says in Romans 12: 5, "So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another".



"For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread" (I Corinthians 10: 17).



"There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;" (Ephesians 4: 4)



"...there shall be one fold and one shepherd.' John 10: 16



There cannot be the church and ethnic Israel as two different groups who are now the people of God.



Ekklesia, Strong's Number 1577, is said to mean "...a popular meeting, especially a religious congregation, Jewish synagogue or Christian community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both."



This is not what the Catholics or the dispensationalists mean now by the capital C Church as a Body of Christ different from what Paul calls "the children of the flesh" (Romans 9: 8 or "Israel after the flesh" (I Corinthians 10: 18).



What that remnant of ethnic Israel who accepted Christ Paul identifies in Romans 11: 5 is to be called is confused in dispensationalism. While the classical dispensationalists - John Darby, C.I. Scofield and Lewis S. Chafer - apparently said that all Israel will remain separate from their Capital C Church forever, later some dispensationalists have tried to teach that saved Jews become part of their Capital C Church.



According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesia_%28ancient_Athens%29

"The ecclesia or ekklesia was the principal assembly of the democracy of ancient Athens during its "Golden Age" (480?404 BCE). It was the popular assembly, opened to all male citizens with 2 years of military service by Solon in 594 BC meaning that all classes of citizens in Athens were able to participate."



Another site, http://www.truediscipleship.com/Biblical%20subjects/subjects15.htm says:



"This citation from God?s Word . . . should be, to all Scripture-loyal people, sufficient by itself to establish the word?s first-century meaning, but extra-New Testament literature furnishes additional support. In Himerius (4th century AD), Orations 39,5, the word ekklesia was used to refer to a group or gathering of animals in the Thracian mountains. In Diogenes Laertius (3rd century AD), 8,41, Hermippus used the word to refer to the community of Pythagoras. Josephus (1st century) Antiquities, 12,164; 19,332 uses the word, as Acts 19:39 does, to refer to a regularly summoned political body. I Maccabees (1st century BC) 3:13 uses the word as "gathering" or "meeting." These writings are by no means presented here as divinely inspired, but they perform for us the very important service of showing us the meaning of words in first-century minds. They, as well as Acts 19, support the fact that first-century people were in the habit of using the word ekklesia to mean "assembly, group, gathering."



Called out as part of the definition of ekklesia is not limited to being called out of the world to Christ. "The word ekklesia was a Greek compound noun made by combining the words ek (out of) and kaleo (I call)......." People are called out to a meeting. "The Greeks used the term to denote any assembly of persons called out, or called together, for any specific purpose." This is from: http://www.vscoc.org/TheChurch/Mychurch.htm



Then on http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/ekklesia.html they tell us that:



"It is probably associated with the Scottish kirk, the Latin circus/circulous, the Greek klukos, because the congregations were gathered in circles." "It" is the word church.



"Throughout England, pagan religious gatherings were always held at a circle. The Druids with their Stonehenge, the Celts, and Saxons also met at stone circles, to worship their gods. Many of these stone circles still exist throughout England and about twenty eight are found in the Wyclife's Yorkshire area. Many of the first English Christian buildings for worship were located on these circle sites or were built using stones from these circles. Through this association, the people of Wyclife's day continued to call these buildings a "kirk"(Scottish), a cirice (Old English), or chirche (Wyclife's version), each variation meaning "circle" and describing a place-occult-and not the people." This is from: http://www.beinaberean.org/writings/church.html



"Although we can see Wyclife's rationale for using the word "church" or "circle" as common to his day, it was not suitable then or now, since it does not meet the meaning or intent of the original word?a reference to people. Because "church" or "circle" describes a place, the real meaning of ekklesia is lost. The better translation, "congregation", was used by most other translations after Wyclife, except the Geneva Bible and the one authorized by King James?the later being the foundation of our modern versions." Again, from: http://www.beinaberean.org/writings/church.html



To avoid confusion and the false doctrines that can arise from the use of "church" as the elect of Christ now in 2013 the Greek word ekklesia should be used and the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance definition of ekklesia as people being called out to a meeting, an assembly, or a congregation should be kept in mind. In Paul's day almost all the people who met in houses to hear leaders, or the disciples of Paul, preach - and the people in the assembly could also talk - were saved, were of the elect.



This means that the elect, all those saved in Christ,. should not be called the "church," but called by the words used in the New Testament, the elect, the Body of Christ, or the saints. The ekklesia is a meeting, no matter what the number of people who get together, of the Body of Christ. And some who have not yet been transformed or born again by having the mind of Christ may come to the meetings. And - in our time the highways and byways of Luke 14: 23 can also be the Internet. "And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." Those who now have the testimony of Jesus Christ are often scattered over the country and even over the world, but can get together on the Internet, on blogs, web sites, social media sites and Skype, at least for now. And those who are beginning to have an interest in that testimony can join them.



The teaching that those born again of any race are transformed Israel is in scripture, though it is not spelled out or spoon fed. For example, its implied in Ephesians 2: 11-19. And that somewhat metaphoric statement of Paul in Galatians 4: 25-26, "But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all" in contrast to "Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children" is loaded with meaning about who is the Body of Christ. If we combine this somewhat metaphoric teaching with Galatians 3: 3-29 on what Abraham's seed is in the New Covenant, and the cryptic message about the "Israel of God" in Galatians 6: 16, there is the sure implication that the "Israel of God" is the elect Body of Christ, made up of people of all races. The Israel of God could be made more explicit by saying "the Israel which is of God," as contrasted to "the children of the flesh, these are not the Children of God" of Romans 9: 8. Those of ethnic Israel who rejected Christ are not the Israel of God, though they make the claim that they are still Israel.



There is one Body of Christ, one fold as Christ says in John 10: 16, and this is Israel reborn in Christ (John 3: 1-7). Because the teaching that the Body of Christ is Israel reborn in him is not spelled out or spoon fed, man-made theology has been able to claim that God now has two different peoples of God, the Jews and the Church. But those who rely on their identity in Christ as being the Church, and not Israel reborn, are in danger of trying to crash the wedding supper of the Lamb (Matthew 22: 2-14) having on the wrong garment.

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