Today, if we go back to the teaching of the apostles and use that as our template, the congregations that you and I worship with will resemble congregations in the New Testament in the very same ways that those congregations resembled one another.
God can’t be other than what He is. He couldn’t reconcile Himself to us in simply any way that “felt good” to Him; it would have to be in a way consistent with His divine attributes, which are fixed and very definite: hence, “the Way” (Acts 9:1,2).
God’s people “bear” His name. In a sense, God has put His reputation in the hands of those who are “a people for his name.” Knowing that the world is watching, we live so as to reflect favorably on God’s character and His power (Matthew 5:13-16).
“I will be their God” had reference in the old covenant to Israel, but in the new it would encompass people from every nation. And amazingly, even this had been anticipated in the Jewish prophecies of the Messiah’s reign, like Daniel 7:13,14.
Reconciliation can only be through the atonement of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. But in Christ, let us not undervalue what it’s possible for us to be: a people set aside for God to possess. There is no higher privilege than to be a part of this people.
If God has a people, which He certainly does in Jesus Christ, it was not without purpose that He made them His people. God dwells with us in order that we may know Him — and knowing Him, that we might experience the joy of living within His wisdom.
Reminiscent of the Passover lamb in Israel, Jesus was a greater sacrifice, enabling God to justify mankind from its sins. John the Baptist said on one occasion as he saw Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Christ gave Himself up for the church in order that “he might sanctify her.” The whole plan by which Christ was able to have a “set apart” people depended on His dying for those people. The Messiah had to die for our atonement (Isaiah 53:4-6).
The church in Philippi had begun in unusual circumstances, and they had been a great encouragement to Paul. The salutation of his letter to them (Philippians 1:1) is a good snapshot of what a local congregation was in the days of the New Testament.
Let’s consider the fascinating group which Paul addressed as “the church of God that is in Corinth.” Together, the two letters that we have from Paul to Corinth take up more pages in the New Testament than we have from him to any other congregation.
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