THE SO-CALLED “CHURCH” as a separate entity from the houses of Judah and Israel, a third option, another dispensational age, or a thirteenth gate into the New Jerusalem, is a man made fable. It simply doesn’t exist anywhere in Scripture. There’s no such thing as a privatized Hebrew non-church state divided into two houses and a completely separate church-age country club, by which the Gentile is able to indulge in.
The Greek word for church is ekklesia. Our entire false paradigm of a New Testament non-Hebrew grace-based church-age as something completely separate from an Old Testament works-based Hebrew religion comes almost exclusively from our usage of one word.
Ekklesia.
The thing is, ekklesia was employed all throughout the Septuagint.
I can hear the heresy alarm sounding off right now.
“Wait, hold on Noel, are you saying that the ‘church’ existed in the Law and the Prophets too?”
I’m so glad you asked.
And yes, that’s precisely what I’m saying.
HERETIC…! HERETIC…! (cough, Noel) HERETIC…!
See, where the Masoretic Hebrew Text uses the term qahal, the Septuagint usually employs the Koine Greek term ekklesia (or ἐκκλησία for all you Greek readers out there). It matters little. Written in either Koine Greek or Hebrew, both ekklesia and qahal denotes the very same thing—a “multitude, company, congregation, assembly, or summoned group.” Literally, it means “they who are called out.”
It is so tragic that two-thousand years of man made doctrines have construed, convoluted, and confused a simple straightforward love story into a heap of something that’s not even recognizable in Scripture anymore. [YHWH] called His congregation, His ekklesia, out of Egypt and into covenant with Him at Sinai. It’s that simple. Pick your house—Judah or Israel.
There’s no third option.
—Noel
