Do you really understand the meaning of the word ‘church'?

Can you define the word ‘church’ in accordance to the writings in our Holy Bible?

 

 

The unbelieving Jews wherever God has scattered them on earth defines the word church in three words. They believe the church refers to the Roman Catholic Church. The Jewish people think of the Roman Crusades whenever they encounter the word church. They experienced massacres and persecutions a thousand times from the hands of the Roman Catholic Church and understandably the word ‘church’ strikes terror in their heart.

 

But does the Bible speak of the Roman Catholic Church or Christianity whenever the word church is mentioned?

 

The truth is the term ‘church’ has occurred in the New Testament first on Matthew 16:18 and it refers to the Jewish people and the rest of the people of Israel. The holy nation of Israel is described in the book of Acts as the ‘church in the wilderness.’ The gentile nations on earth today through the United Nations organization are consistent with its plan to destroy utterly the Jewish people in Israel with their peace initiatives. But Jesus the anointed King of the Jews had declared that would never happen at all.

 

“When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ (Mashiach in Hebrew), the Son of the living God."

 

“Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:13-18, NKJV).

 

According to Strong’s Concordance, the word ‘church’ in the preceding verse has been translated from the Greek word ‘ekklesia.’ Ekklesia is a compound of two Greek words, ek and kaleo. The church denotes an assembly of people called-out from whatever place or country they were before. It has the essence of belonging to the one that does the calling. Correspondingly the church in Matthew 16:18, refers to the people that God had called out of Egypt and brought to the land of Israel to become the chosen people of God.

 

According to Smith Dictionary the word ‘church’ is ‘probably connected with kirk, the Latin circus, circulus, the Greek kuklos, (kuklos), or kuriakos, because the congregations were gathered in circles’ (from the word ‘church’, Smith Dictionary). Church as a word is merely describing the way the true believers gather together when they come to worship God. It is not the building where the members of the Church that are worshiping are meeting every Sabbath day. It does not refer to the group of Christian believers at all.

 

 

 

The Rock

 

 

Jesus Christ had not called out a new group of people or a new assembly at that time in Matthew 16:18 for He already had the Jewish people as His true Church. Jesus was merely describing the tribulations that the Jewish people shall experience on earth. The graves or the gates of hell shall not triumph over the Jewish people to the extent that the chosen people of Israel shall disappear from the face of the earth. The King of Israel has promised to build His own house, when he said, ‘on this rock I will build my church.’

 

Jesus is not saying in verse 18 that He will build the Jewish nation on Peter the chief apostle. Peter or Cephas is merely an analogy of the rock wherein Jesus shall build the Jewish nation later on. There will come a time that the trials and tribulations that the Islamic Arabs are bringing upon the Jewish people in Israel will end. The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse shall not succeed in its job of destroying the Jewish people in Israel at all.

 

If Peter whose name has a meaning similar to the word ‘rock’ is simply an analogy, then what is the rock that Jesus is alluding to?

 

There is a piece of rock located atop Mt. Moriah, the site of the Temple of God in Jerusalem. Is it possible that Jesus is speaking of the Temple of God as the rock wherein He will build the Church that is Israel?

 

Jesus is the King of Israel and we know that from Matthew 16:13-18. The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven are one and the same. Both of them refer to the Kingdom of Israel. When it comes to building the Church of God or Israel, Jesus as the King of Israel shall build the Holy Nation of Israel and not a religious organization like that of a Christian Church.

 

Once the Temple of God in Jerusalem is built, there is no more stopping the ascendancy of the Kingdom of Israel over all the nations on earth. As the high priest of God on earth, the Temple of God is destined to be the uniting factor that will bring all of the called-out ones (church) together as one. Even the Gentile believers that are faithful and true can become part of the Kingdom of God contrary to the teachings of the Jewish rabbis of Rabbinical Judaism.

 

 

 

The Church in the Wilderness

 

 

The book of Acts has also identified the Church as the people of Israel. Stephen, being full of the Holy Spirit, testified in the following verses that God had brought out the people of Israel from the land of Egypt. Israel is indeed the Church of God, not any one of the Christian groups claiming they are the true Church of God.

 

“This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush. He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years. This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us” (Act 7:35-38, KJV).

 

The word ‘church’ is a term or a word applicable only to the Jewish people and the entire lost children of Israel. The Jewish people are the remnant of Israel that God has called out of this world. They have already returned to the land of Israel. The building and strengthening of the true Church of God is about to happen very soon just as Jesus has promised on Matthew 16:18.

 

Paul the apostle also testified to the fact that the nation of Israel is the Church of God. He mentioned in his letter to the Ephesians how the Gentile believer had undergone a cultural and national transformation from stranger or foreigner to that of a bona fide citizen of the nation of Israel.

 

“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands--remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:11-13, RSV).

 

The Church of God directly refers to the nation of Israel, which the true believers in Jesus Christ have become a part of, not as an alien living in a foreign land, but that of a true citizen of his own country. The Gentile believers become part of the chosen people of Israel by means of the blood that Jesus has shed in the cross. They become part of the everlasting covenant that God had made with the children of Israel. But history has shown us that the Gentile converts could not be trusted of the covenant of promise.

 

 

 

Christian Myth

 

 

The Gentile believers, especially those residing in Rome during New Testament times, had turned their back utterly from the true religion of Judaism. The Christian movement in Rome had distanced themselves from the Jewish people and openly renounced the religion of Judaism when Hadrian persecuted the Jews. The followers of Simon Magus’ Christian movement had crossed over to paganism. That is how Christianity came to be.

 

The Christian sects and denominations today have claimed for themselves the title of the Church of God or simply the term ‘church.’ The Jewish people came to hate and despise the name ‘church’ for an exceedingly obvious reason. It is not easy to be accused of murdering your own anointed king, especially when the particular king is your Promised Messiah. The one destined to save and deliver the Jewish people from the clutches of the Gentile nations was killed by His own people.

 

In hating the word ‘church,’ the Jewish people have admitted without remorse or repentance the crime they committed against their own God. They despise and hate God indirectly. They hate the God that has chosen Israel as the church. They crucified and killed their own God. But it is not the ordinary Jews—am yisrael—that have crucified and killed Jesus. It was the religious rulers of Israel—Sanhedrin—that had conspired to get Jesus killed by the Romans.

 

But the Jewish rabbis, the scholars and the scribes of the law continue covering up the great crime perpetrated by their Jewish rulers. They continue advocating and teaching implicitly that the name ‘church’ is similar to a cancerous tumor that should be avoided at all cost. They mischievously treat the church as a Christian term that embodies all Christian religious organizations like that of the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church.

 

Many Christian people who adopted the name ‘messianic’ have also taken the hostile disposition of the Jewish people to the word ‘church.’ Messianic Jewish groups have used the words congregation and assembly in place of the term ‘church’ to avoid offending the Jews and to feign Jewishness. But nothing changes much to the beliefs of the Messianic Jews except their application of the Hebrew language and their usage of Jewish icons.

 

The New Testament writings inadvertently use the word church to refer to the elect people of Israel. If the word church had been applied unintentionally by the Bible translators to the elect people of Israel, it has also been used to refer to the very elect people of Israel. This complication emanated from the fact that the holy nation of Israel, the kingdom of God on earth, is a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6). The new ruling that the laws applicable to the priests are applicable to all the people of Israel is a new legislation introduced by the Pharisees during the second Temple times. By making the ordinary people of Israel as similar to the priests serving in the Temple of God, the elders of Israel or the Jewish rabbis had promoted themselves as an equal of the priests. But this legislation, even if it’s essentially true, connotes firmly that there exist a high-ranking group of priests over the people of Israel.

 

 

 

True Church of God

 

 

“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matthew 24:21-24, KJV).

 

The elect in the preceding verses refer directly to all the Jewish people. It is for their sake that the great tribulation is going to be shortened. Verse 24 shows us the existence of the very elect people of Israel. This group denotes the Jewish Church of God that will escape deception from false prophets and false Messiahs and they are the priests or the first fruits that will rise among the true believers in Jesus.

 

There are many Churches of God on earth but there are only one true Church of God that earned the term of the very elect people of Israel. The true Church of God undeniably refers to the Jewish people of Israel. Even if many of the Jewish people continue denying and rejecting their Promised Messiah, when Jesus returns in the land of Israel and deliver the Jewish people from destruction everyone will believe in Him.

 

At that time, the Christian people on earth can no longer reject the Jewish people as the Church of God. But it is the Christian people that will come to discover that they are not really the Church of God, not one of them.

 

At this time, the readers must understand that the remnants of the seven churches that claim Christianity as their religion, requires repentance in accordance to the Torah of Moses before they can be accepted in the Church of God.

 

If the religion of your Church is Christianity then surely you are not a member of the Church. The Church is Israel indeed so convert immediately so when Jesus comes you will not be found missing and without a light. Let your lamp shines right now and join us in the New Jerusalem.

 

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