2.1. The Language
2.1. The Language
By first pursuing the New Testament language for the Christian communities, I hope to demonstrate two realities about them: (a) their strong sense of continuity with the people of God under the former covenant, and (b) their basically corporate nature.
That the early believers thought in terms of continuity is writ large on nearly every page, in nearly every document.85 They did not see themselves as the “new people of God,” but as the “people of God newly constituted.” Nowhere is this more clear than in their adopting Old Testament “people of God” language, a language appropriation that is as varied as it is thoroughgoing.
2.1.1. Church (ekklesia)
Because this word does not appear in the English Old Testament, and because its usage for the “assembly” of the Greek polis is generally well known, the Old Testament background for New Testament usage is frequently overlooked. In the LXX ekklesia is regularly used to translate the Hebrew qahal, referring most often to the “congregation of Israel,” especially when it was gathered for religious purposes. 86 Thus this word in particular was a natural one for the early believers to bridge the gap as they began to spill over into the Gentile world.
Since the concept of a “gathered people” was primary in both Greek and LXX usage, it is arguable that this is what lay behind the earliest Christian usage as well. Thus in its first appearance in the New Testament (1 Thess 1:1) Paul is probably thinking primarily of the Christian community as a gathered people, constituted “in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” who would be listening to the letter as it was read. It is also arguable that its usage throughout the New Testament never gets very far away from this nuance; the ekklesia refers first of all to the people in the various cities and towns who gather regularly in the name of the Lord for worship and instruction.
2.1.2. People (laos)
Although not particularly popular with Greek writers, this is the word chosen by the LXX translators87 to render the Hebrew ‘am, the word that occurs most often (over 2000 times) to express the special relationship Israel had with Yahweh: Above all else they were Yahweh’s “people.” Although at times the word can distinguish the people (usually non-Israelite) from their leaders (e.g., Gen 41:40; Exod 1:22), in most cases it is the collective word that designates the whole people whom God had chosen — people, priests, prophets, and kings together. Thus in Exodus 19:5, in establishing his covenant with them at Sinai, God says (LXX), “You shall be for me a laos periousios (special/chosen people) from among the ethnon (nations/ Gentiles).”
In the New Testament the word occurs most often to refer to the Jewish people of that era.88 But in several striking passages it is used in its Old Testament sense, especially reflecting the language of Exodus 19:5-6 (cf. 23:22 LXX), to refer to people of the new covenant, usually in contexts that include Gentiles. Thus Luke reports James as saying: “How God at first showed his concern by taking from the ethnon a laos for his name” (Acts 15:14); in Titus 2:14 the goal of Christ’s saving purpose is “that he might purify for himself a laos periousios,” while 1 Peter 2:9-10 combines “people” language from two Old Testament passages (Isa 43:20; Exod 19:6; Isa 43:21), followed by a wordplay on Hosea 2:25 (cf. 1:9), to designate Gentile Christians as “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God,” who were formerly “no people” but now “are the people of God.” So also the author of Hebrews transfers several Old Testament “people” passages or concepts to the church (2:17; 4:9; 7:27; 13:12).
2.1.3. Covenant (diatheke)
Although this term does not occur often in the New Testament, it is used in ways that are significant to our topic. The author of Hebrews in particular adopts covenantal language to tie the new to the old, seeing Christ as the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s “new covenant” in which God says again, as in the Sinaitic covenant, “They shall be for me a people” (Heb 8:7-12; citing Jer 31:34). Paul also adopts this language to refer to the “new covenant” of the Spirit (2 Cor 3:6; cf. Gal 4:24). Perhaps even more significantly, as the people joined in common fellowship at the Table of the Lord in the Pauline churches, they did so with these words: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor 11:25; Luke 22:20). It should be noted that both the language “new covenant” and its close tie with the Spirit and the people of God are seen in terms of continuity with the Old Testament (in this case as fulfillment); thus in the church’s earliest worship and liturgy there was the constant reminder of their continuity /discontinuity with the past.89
2.1.4. Saints (hoi hagioi)
Although not frequent in the Old Testament, the designation of Israel as God’s “holy people” occurs in the crucial covenantal passage in Exodus 19:5-6, an expression that in later Judaism referred to the elect who were to share in the blessings of the messianic kingdom (Dan 7:18-27; Ps. Sol. 17; Qumran). This is Paul’s primary term for God’s newly formed, eschatological people. He uses it in the salutation of six of the nine letters addressed to congregations, plus Philemon, as well as in several other kinds of settings. Its appearance in Acts 9:41; Hebrews 6:10; 13:24; Jude 3; and Revelation 8:4 makes it clear that this was widespread usage in the early church. In all cases it is a designation for the collective people of God, who are to bear his “holy” character and thus to be “set apart” for his purposes. To put that another way, the New Testament knows nothing about individual “saints,” only about Christian communities as a whole who take up the Old Testament calling of Israel to be “God’s holy people” in the world.90
2.1.5. Chosen (eklektos and Cognates)
Closely related to the covenant is the concept of Israel as having been chosen by God, by an act of sheer mercy on his part. In the Old Testament this concept is most often found in verb form, with God as the subject. However, the LXX of Isaiah 43:20-21 uses eklektos as a designation for the restored people of God. This usage is picked up in several places in the New Testament (e.g., Mark 13:22; 1 Thess 1:4; 2 Thess 2:13; Col 3:12; Eph 1:4, 11; 1 Peter 1:2; 2:9). As in the Old Testament the term does not refer to individual election, but to a people who have been chosen by God for his purposes; as one has been incorporated into, and thus belongs to, the chosen people of God, one is in that sense also elect. Also as in the Old Testament, this language places the ultimate ground of our being in a sovereign and gracious God, who willed and initiated salvation for his people.
2.1.6. Royal Priesthood
This term, taken directly from Exodus 19:6, is used in 1 Peter 2:9-10 to refer to the church. I include it here not only because it is further demonstration of continuity, but also because as in the Exodus passage it so clearly refers to the people corporately,91 not to individual priests, nor to the priesthood of individual believers.92
2.1.7. The Israel of God
This unique expression occurs only in Galatians 6:16 in the entire Bible. Nonetheless, in many ways it gathers up much of the New Testament thinking — especially Paul’s — on this matter. All those who live by the “rule” that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, these are “the Israel of God” upon whom God’s benediction of shalom and mercy now rests.93 While it is true that Paul does not call the church the “new Israel,” such passages as Romans 2:28-29; 9:5; Philippians 3:3, and this one demonstrate that Paul saw the church as the “true Israel,” i.e., as in the true succession of the Old Testament people of God. At the same time it emphasizes that those people are now newly constituted — composed of Jew and Gentile alike, and based solely on faith in Christ and the gift of the Spirit.
This comes through nowhere more forcefully than in the argument of Galatians itself, for which this passage serves as the climax. Paul’s concern throughout has been to argue that through Christ and the Spirit Gentiles share with believing Jews full privileges in the promises made to Abraham (indeed are Abraham’s true children), without submitting to Torah in the form of Jewish identity symbols (circumcision, food laws, calendar observance).94 They do not need to submit to the regulations of the old covenant in order to be full members of the people of God; indeed in “belonging to Christ,” they are “Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (3:29), which is confirmed for them by the gift the Spirit (4:6-7).
Here especially the primary name for God’s ancient people has been taken over in the interests of continuity, but now predicated on new terms. The Israel of God includes both Jew and Gentile, who by faith in Christ and “adoption” by the Spirit, have become Abraham’s “free children,” and through Christ the inheritors of the promises made to Abraham. Gentile believers as a people are included in the newly constituted people of God, the Israel of God, which is at the same time also an obviously corporate image.
2.1.8. Further (non-Old Testament) Images
The essentially corporate nature of the people of God is further demonstrated by the various images for the church found in the New Testament that are not from the Old Testament:famiry, where God is Father and his people are brothers and sisters; the related image of household, where the people are members of the household (1 Tim 3:5, 15) and their leaders the Master’s servants (1 Cor 4:1-3); body, where the emphasis is simultaneously on their unity and diversity (1 Cor 10:17; 12:12-26); God’s temple, or sanctuary, where by the Spirit they corporately serve as the place of God’s dwelling (1 Cor 3:16-17; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21-22); God’s commonwealth , where as citizens of heaven Jew and Gentile alike form a polis in exile, awaiting their final homeland (Phil 3:20-21; Eph 2:19; 2 Peter 1:1, 17).
In sum: By using so much Old Testament language to mark off their own identity, the early church saw themselves not only as in continuity with the Old Testament people of God, but as in the true succession of that people. One of the essential features of this continuity is the corporate nature of the people of God. God chose, and made covenant with, not individual Israelites but with a people, who would bear his name and be for his purposes. Although individual Israelites could forfeit their position in Israel, this never affected God’s design or purposes with the people as a people. This is true even when the majority failed, and the “people” were reduced to a “remnant.” That remnant was still Israel — loved, chosen, and redeemed by God.
This is the thoroughgoing perspective of the New Testament as well, but at the same time Christ’s coming and the gift of the eschatological Spirit also marked a new way by which they were constituted. The community is now entered individually through faith in Christ and the reception of the Spirit, signaled by baptism. Nonetheless, the church itself is the object of God’s saving activity in Christ. God is thus choosing and saving a people for his name.
Perhaps nothing illustrates this quite so vividly as two passages in 1 Corinthians (5:1-13; 6:1-11), where rather flagrant sins on the part of individuals are spoken to. In both cases Paul aims his heaviest artillery not at the individual sinners, but at the church for its failure to deal with the matters. In 5:1-13 the man is not so much as spoken to, and his partner is not mentioned at all; everything is directed at the church — for its arrogance, on the one hand, and its failure to act, on the other. So also in 6:1-11. In this case he does finally speak to the plaintiff (w. 7-8a) and the defendant (w. 8b-11), but only after he has scored the church for its allowing such a thing to happen at all among God’s eschatological community, and thus for its failure to act. What is obviously at stake in these cases is the church itself, and its role as God’s redeemed and redemptive alternative to Corinth.