Explore the concept of the Church as the People of God
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| The Heavenly Jerusalem |
Throughout
postlapsarian human history, God has entered space and time to interact with
man and thereby reveal Himself, for the purposes of bringing man back into the
communion with Him that He originally intended. This communion lies in intimately
knowing and loving God. In each stage of salvation history God has gradually
expanded the group known as “His people,” all in preparation for the day when
His family would include the whole human race. Thus both the nation of Israel
of the Old Testament and the Church of the New Testament are truly “the People
of God,”
manifested differently in different stages of the economy of salvation. This
paper will argue that God’s way of drawing mankind to Himself has a fundamental
continuity throughout the ages, and will explore this specifically by looking
at Israel and the Church in the light of their point of convergence, Christ. This
will be done by analysing various characteristics of the People of God, namely,
election, membership, hierarchy, status, law, mission and destiny. What will be
seen is that they are in fact one reality, viewed from two sides of Christ’s
coming.
The People of
God are set apart by God’s particular choice and election. It is not because of
any unique, outstanding feature that they possess that they are chosen, but
purely by God’s good pleasure. Israel was not chosen because it was greater
than any other nations (in fact they frequently disobey God),
but because of God’s gracious love.
Similarly,
those who are called into faith in Christ are called not because of their own
deeds, but because of God’s mercy.
God
is not exclusively the property of any one nation,
but He freely binds Himself to specific people so that He is reliably
accessible to them. The purpose of God’s choice of Israel was to set aside a people
for Himself, who would be defined by their relationship with Him.
The familial nature of this relationship was manifested both in the communal
meal of the Passover, wherein God’s people gather in love to participate in His
salvation,
and in His presence among them that was the intended consequence of this
salvation, in the temple.
This concept of God dwelling among His people is “radicalised in and mediated
by the Incarnation and the Eucharist,” which make (and are) the Church,
as
in this New Passover God made man unites Himself and His salvation in a
profoundly tangible manner with His People. Thus God consistently calls His people
into communion with Him, which will be perfectly realised in Heaven, where His people
from all ages will be united with Him.
God effects and
sustains this election (that is, brings individuals into His community) through
physical signs.
These
tangibly express different aspects of their relationship, and through them God
deigns to impart His grace,
so that man, as a comprehensive unity of body and soul, might experience
friendship with God in a manner suited to his nature. Those rituals established
by God prior to Christ granted grace in anticipation of the effects of the
salvific work of the Incarnation,
and were renewed by Christ to “signify the redemption as accomplished.”
The
act by which one was initially brought back into God’s friendship through
remittance of original sin in Israel was circumcision,
wherein
one was physically marked or sealed as a recipient of the promises made to
Abraham,
and
therefore incorporated into God’s people. This prefigures Baptism, which,
similarly, sets us with God’s seal,
albeit on our souls rather than bodies, and puts to death our old lives of sin,
bringing us to life in Christ through the Holy Spirit.
The
infusion of faith, hope and charity, brought by sanctifying grace in Baptism,
makes us adopted children of God. The physical elements for these sacraments
symbolise the fact of being “cut off” from God’s people if one fails to keep
the covenant, and the notion of being washed clean, as well as buried with
Christ.
In both instances, God is primarily concerned with His people turning their
hearts truly towards Him, and the tangible rituals being signs of this
conversion, since one is a member of God’s people if and only if they are in an
authentic relationship with Him.
Being called into the People of God elevates one’s status
to the dignity of a child of God.
Israel is tenderly called God’s first-born son, and God is called upon as
Father.
This is made much more explicit with Christ’s revelation of His divine Sonship
within the Trinity, which each member of the Church shares in by their baptism.
Through this Baptism, the Holy Spirit dwells in their hearts, giving rise to
the notion of the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
The status of the People of God is also described in marital terms, with God
speaking of Israel as His Beloved bride,
and the Church as the Bride of Christ.
This image of the Church is intimately related to the notion of the Church as
the Body of Christ, for as the Bride becomes one flesh with the Bridegroom by
receiving His Body in the Eucharist,
so does She become His Body.
These descriptors of the Church’s exalted status coalesce in St Joan of Arc’s definition,
“About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and
we shouldn't complicate the matter,”
with this unity vividly depicted in Revelation.
The terms used to describe the status of God’s people, which derive immediately
from the relationship they have with Him, therefore coincide in meaning,
although they are brought to greater depth, intimacy and clarity with Christ.
The covenants
that confer this new status are accompanied by laws that outline how that
covenant relationship is to be kept, by living in a way that corresponds to
God’s graciousness. For Israel, this consisted of the Torah, which laid out the
manner in which they were to express their love of God, by obedience to all its
norms for morality, ritual purity and liturgical celebrations. The Old Law
contained the commandments referred to by Christ as the two greatest, on which
the entire law and prophets depend: love of God and of neighbour.
As
the new Moses, Christ made this pre-eminence explicit, and gave His Church a
New Law, the Law of loving as He loved,
and
this Law He has written on our hearts.
Thus,
there is no real discontinuity between the two laws,
and the difference between the two lies not in their essence but in their
particular ordinances, which prior to Christ pointed to Him (by regulating the
totality of the culture of Israel such that they were able to recognise the
messiah), and afterwards point back to Him (since the Church is called to love
in imitation of Christ).
It must also be noted that the Old Law of itself was powerless to achieve
salvation, a point repeatedly stressed by St. Paul.
Thus, while the Old Law was good, just and holy,
and centred on love, it remained imperfect, a mere shadow of the promises to be
fulfilled in the redeeming work of Christ,
and is surpassed by the New Law of love,
which has for its example the perfect model, Love itself.
Although all
members of God’s people enjoy the same status, as a whole they nevertheless are
endowed with an internal structure, stemming from God’s pre-eminent position as
King of Creation.
This reflects the order God has put in creation, and is at the service of the
holiness of God’s people.
In Israel, this took the form of both social and spiritual orders, originally
united, with God as their king,
but they rejected Him in favour of an earthly king like the other nations, giving
rise to the monarchy.
Degrees of holiness among the people existed from the establishment of the
covenant, manifested in the roles of the high priest, the priests, the Levites,
and finally the people of Israel as a whole, as a kingdom of priests. In the
New Israel, the social and the spiritual are reunited, since Christ is the
King,
High Priest and Head of the Church. He invests the sacred hierarchy with His
own authority to teach, govern and sanctify, accompanied by the three-fold
separation found in the sacrament of holy orders.
By
considering the roles of the Head, the clergy and the laity, we see the
mirroring of the high priest, the priests and Levites, and the ordinary people
of Israel. The Church as a whole is identified as “a
chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own
people,”
just as Israel as a whole was set apart to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation.”
Furthermore, with the Davidic kingdom came various other roles,
including the steward and Queen mother, which we see fulfilled in the Papal
office and in Mary as the Mother of Christ the King.
These different roles within God’s people are both ordered
to the achievement of and flow directly from their divine mission, and rely on their
recapitulation and integration in Christ.
The purpose of
the People of God is to be used as an instrument by God to draw all men to
Himself,
by
making Himself known. Israel was chosen by God to be the locus of the
revelation of Himself and His Will in the history of mankind.
They are frequently told by God that by His actions with them, other nations
will come to know that He is the Lord, and what kind of God He is.
God’s
self-revelation is perfected in the Incarnation, and
in the Church, the Body of Christ, He perpetuates it,
so that what has been hidden is revealed.
The Church
therefore exists to expand this family of God by allowing men to encounter
Christ through Her, so they may become part of Her by faith in Him, and to
bring Her members to the fullness of sanctification.
The
means for achieving this is found in the three offices of priest, prophet and
king, usually separate in the Old Testament, but perfectly united and completed
in Christ, which the whole Church participates in, although each in the
particular way that is proper to him. The
distinct ministries of priest, prophet and king are therefore integrated together
within the People of God in a manner suited to their mission.
The priestly
office is essentially that of mediation between God and man, and was exercised
by Israel as they interceded on behalf of the world,
and in their worship of and obedience to the Lord, they served as witnesses before
all the nations.
Within
this priestly people there existed further divisions modelling this calling in
God’s wider kingdom,
namely, the high priest, priests and Levites. While this priesthood sanctified
Israel though liturgy, it remained incapable of bringing
about definitive salvation in itself.
Christ, as God incarnate, perfectly embodies this mediation and offers
the Perfect Sacrifice of Himself, and thus is the supreme and perfect High
Priest, in whose ministry the common and hierarchical priesthoods of both the
Old and New Covenants participate.
The
priesthood of the New Israel does so more comprehensively, as through it Christ
Himself acts to bring His redemption to His people.
All
members of the New Israel receive a share in this priestly vocation by virtue
of their faith and Baptism,
and manifest it in the living out of the Christian life, most particularly in the offering of the Eucharist.
Thus the People of God, in reflecting God’s holiness and love through the
priestly office, fulfil their purpose in revealing Who He is to the world.
The roles of the prophet and king
also contribute to the mission of the People of God. The prophetic office
entails communicating the Word of God, which in Israel was the task of men
specifically called by God to convey His message, usually in relation to
restoring their relationship. The Word is enfleshed in the person of Jesus, and
thus for the Christian the prophetic office involves the unfailing witness to
Christ that they exhibit in their every action, as well as adhering unfailingly
to the one faith, as the bearers anointed by the Holy Spirit.
The Old Testament kingly ministry was manifested in Israel’s service of God as
their King, as well as in the role of the earthly ruler, who was to ensure that
the True King’s laws were known and obeyed, and was also subject to these laws
himself.
The eternal Davidic king promised in the
person of the messiah is fulfilled in Christ, who establishes His Kingdom on
earth
, and thus the People of God fulfils its royal dignity by serving
with Christ.
Through
His people therefore, in their exercise of the prophetic and kingly ministries
of witness and service, integrated with their priestly ministry, God makes
Himself known to men so that they may join His community of love.
All of these characteristics
of the People of God are ordered towards their consummation when God’s people
see Him “face to face.”
This
eschatological end was prefigured in the meal the elders ate with Moses in the
ratification of the covenant on Mount Sinai, where they “beheld God, and ate
and drank,” and remembered in the most holy sacrificial meal of the Bread of
the Presence.
The
Church already participates in this heavenly reality in a veiled manner through
Her divine liturgy, wherein the Bride partakes of the wedding feast of the Lamb
and enjoys a foretaste of the Heavenly encounter with God.
The prophets spoke of the fully restored Israel, when all nations would stream
to Zion to worship God and learn His Law,
a
hope that is realised in the Church.
As Moses led Israel in the Exodus to the Promised Land, sustained by the manna
that provided a foretaste of this holy land, so does Christ lead His people on a
New Exodus through this life, as the pilgrim Church journeys towards Her true
Homeland, with the New Manna that Christ instituted, the Eucharist.
This
is the destiny of all men, as God created him to share in His own life, and the
People of God is both the means of offering the restoration of this
relationship to all of humanity, and the final realisation of this relationship
for all eternity.
In conclusion, the
Old Covenants and the Scriptures to which they are intimately linked were
established by God in preparation for the New Covenant, to be inaugurated by
His Son. Once that which they were pointing towards had been realised, they
were no longer necessary, and thus the Old Covenants and Law were “fulfilled,”
or achieved their purpose. The People of God sustained by these covenants and
Scriptures did not, however, cease to exist at its fulfilment, but was
transformed in every element, into the New Israel, the Church. Each of these
elements displays a clear continuity between its old and new counterparts, with
the old defined by their anticipation of Christ’s future coming, and the new
defined both by Christ’s arrival in the past and His future second coming, such that the Church is both pilgrim
(on earth) and perfected (in heaven). Israel
and the Church are thus both the People of God, bound by covenant and law, with
specific missions and destinies. These converge in Christ, who fulfilled and transformed
all that preceded Him in Israel, through revealing the hidden mysteries of God,
a work that is continued in His Church, all of which has as its end the
incorporation of man into the communion with God for which he was created.
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the Church. (17 April 2003) <
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Kleinig, John W., Leviticus (Concordia Commentary) (St Louis: Concordia, 2003)
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