The Gospel Church differed from that of the Jewish Church. (continued)
the mount they must "be stoned, or thrust through with a dart". It is true that it will always be dangerous for presumptuous and brutish sinners to draw nigh to God; but it is not immediate and certain death, as here it was.
This was the state of the Jewish Church, fitted to awe a stubborn and hard-hearted people, and to set forth the strict and tremendous justice of God, and to wean the people of God from that dispensation and make them more readily to embrace the sweet and gentle economy of the Gospel Church and adhere to it.
15. THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL CHURCH The Gospel Church represents the Church Triumphant in heaven. The Gospel Church is called Mount Sion, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is free, in opposition to Mount Sinai which tends to bondage (see Gal. iv. 24). This was the hill on which God set His King the Messiah. In coming to Mount Sion believers come into a heavenly place and into a heavenly society.
(a) They come to ''the city of the living God''. God has taken up His gracious residence in the Gospel Church, which on that account is an emblem of heaven. There His people may find Him ruling, guiding, sanctifying and comforting them. There He speaks to them by the Gospel ministry. There they speak to Him by prayer, and He hears them. There He trains them up for heaven, and gives them the earnest of their inheritance.
(6) They come to a heavenly society, ''to an innumerable company of angels'. Those that by faith are joined to the Gospel Church are joined to the angels, and shall at length be like them, and equal with them. By faith also "to the general assembly and Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven''. We have communion with them in the same Head, by the same Spirit, and in the same blessed hope, and walk in the same way of holiness, grappling with the same spiritual enemies, and hasting to the same rest, victory, and glorious triumph where will be the general assembly of the first-born, the saints of former and earlier times, who saw the promises of the Gospel state but received them not, as well as those that received them under the Gospel, and were regenerated thereby, and so were the firstborn, and the first-fruits of the Gospel Church, and thereby as the first-born, advanced to greater honours and privileges than the rest of the world.
Church 63
SERMON OUTLINE
THE CHURCH
THE CHURCH'S CHARTER
(a) The Charter is Granted by Christ (6) 'The Charter is Given to Peter (c) The Charter is Intended for the Whole Church THE TERMS OF THE CHARTER (a) The Building of the Church (5) The Foundation of the Church (c) The Security of the Church (d) The Government of the Church
Ai:
(i) The key of doctrine (ii) The key of discipline THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH (a) The Duties of Ministers
Tit
(i) To take heed to themselves (ii) To take heed to the flock (iii) To feed the Church of God (iv) To keep watch over the flock (5) The Variety of Offices (c) The Order of Officers THE GLORY OF THE CHURCH
EV:
(a) Contrasted with the Jewish Church (b) Compared with the Heavenly Sion (i) The City of the Living God (ii) The Society of the Saints