Many people today refuse to believe that the church was prophesied about in the Old Testament, and so, in effect, they have to cross out everything God said about the coming of His church in the Old Testament. I would like us to begin our journey back to where God promised that Jesus, the head crusher, would come and destroy the devil, Genesis 3:15.
What has this promise got to do with the church? Well, Jesus didn’t come just to defeat the evil one; He had to come to die in order to establish His church. What does the promise in Genesis 12:1-3 have to do with the church? This promise of making ‘a great nation’ to Abraham was going to be partly fulfilled when Israel became a nation.
When we read Exodus 19:5-6, notice the four promises of God concerning the Israelites if they obeyed Him and kept their side of the agreement. God says, ‘out of all nations’, Exodus 19:5. In other words, out of all the people who were around at this time, God deliberately chose them. But why? Why these guys?
Well, it’s certainly not because they were better than all the other people around them. No! God chose Israel because He had plans to save the world through them.
And God says, I’m choosing you because ‘you will be my treasured possession,’ Exodus 19:5. Think about the most valuable jewellery you possess, think about all the gold and silver in the world, think about expensive pearls and precious stones. God says, because I brought you out of slavery and bondage, you guys are going to be my personal treasure, that’s how much you’re worth to me.
And notice the word ‘possession’, Exodus 19:5. In the Gospels we read about people being ‘possessed’ with an evil spirit. When a person became possessed by an evil spirit, the evil spirit took over their life and took full control of their life. Well, in much the same way, God’s people need to be possessed by God; He owns us, He lives in us, and we need to allow Him to do whatever He wants us to do.
And then God says, ‘You will be a kingdom of priests,’ Exodus 19:6. A kingdom needs a king, and God was to be their King. But what was a priest’s duty? Well, if a prophet’s job was to speak to the people on behalf of God, then the priest’s duty was to speak to God on behalf of the people. The priest was the mediator between God and man; in other words, they had the job of reconciling the world back to God.
And finally, God says, ‘You will be a holy nation,’ Exodus 19:6. The word ‘holy’ means set apart, and Israel was set apart from all the other nations for the purpose of preserving and sharing the knowledge and worship of God.
Now again, you might ask, what has all this got to do with the church? The promise of the head crusher, Genesis 3:15, and the promise to Abraham concerning a great nation, Genesis 12:2 / Genesis 18:19. God choosing Israel was God’s way of bringing the Messiah into the world to die for us and establish His church.
God’s mission has always been to reconcile the world back to Himself through His Son and His church. Now, there are many prophecies concerning the coming of the church in the Old Testament, but today we’re just going to focus our attention on one.
The prophet Daniel prophesied about the church when he was interpreting King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Daniel 2:31-35. Now notice that Nebuchadnezzar had a dream in which he saw a great image with a head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, and legs of iron and feet of part iron and clay.
He saw a stone, cut out without human hands, strike the image upon its feet, and destroy it. The stone went on to become a great mountain, filling the earth. The king was troubled about the dream, but was unable to interpret it, and so, it was at this point that Daniel came on the scene, and he was able to interpret the King’s dream.
When we read Daniel 2:39-44, notice what Daniel says: he told Nebuchadnezzar that he, as the king of Babylon, was the head of gold, and after him would arise another kingdom inferior to his kingdom, then a third kingdom would arise, followed by a fourth.
Since the stone was to strike the image in his feet, and since the feet represent the fourth kingdom, it follows that the kingdom of God was to be set up during the existence of that fourth kingdom.
Now, who are these different kingdoms? The first kingdom was Babylon, of which Nebuchadnezzar was king, and this is represented by the ‘head of gold’, and we know that Babylon fell around 536 B.C.
The second kingdom was the Medo-Persian, of which Cyrus was the king of Persia, and Darius was the king of Media. This is represented by the ‘breast and arms of silver’, and this kingdom fell around 330 B.C.
The third kingdom was Macedonia, the Greek empire. This kingdom was established by Alexander the Great and later divided among his generals around 323 B.C. This kingdom is represented by the ‘belly and thighs of brass.’
The fourth kingdom was the Roman Empire. This was established as a world empire by Octavius Caesar about 30 B.C. This kingdom is represented by ‘legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay.’
Now notice the phrase in Daniel 2:44, ‘In the time of those kings’. In other words, during the time when Rome ruled the world, ‘the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.’
What’s Daniel talking about? When is this kingdom that God is going to set up going to be fulfilled? Now, as we turn to the New Testament, notice who’s ruling the world at this time. The Romans were ruling the world, Luke 3:1-2, and it was during this time that Daniel prophesied that God would set up His kingdom.
Now, did that time come? Did Daniel’s prophecy see its fulfilment during this time? For almost two and a half thousand years, the Jews had longed for the kingdom to come. Way back in Old Testament times, God had promised, He would establish a kingdom, which would endure forever.
There has been silence from the prophets for four hundred years until John the Baptiser came and stood on the banks of the River Jordan and said, “Repent” Why? “For the kingdom of heaven has come near,’ Matthew 3:1-2.
Now the Jews were waiting for a physical kingdom to be established; they were waiting for the Messiah to get rid of these filthy Roman dictators. But Jesus said, ‘You are to love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you,’ Matthew 5:44.
So, the people were looking for a physical kingdom, a material kingdom, but Jesus says, “Listen, it’s not a physical kingdom but a spiritual kingdom.” He says, “This is what the Old Testament prophets were talking about.” Remember what Jesus said in front of Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world, otherwise my servants would fight,’ John 18:36.
And Jesus mentions something else about the kingdom, too. The kingdom prophesied in the Old Testament is a spiritual kingdom, which is also known by other names.
Let me give you an example, we all know that the church is referred to by various other names, sometimes it is called ‘the body’, Ephesians 1:22-23. Sometimes the church is referred to as ‘God’s household’, 1 Timothy 3:15. Well, in much the same way, the kingdom also refers to ‘the church’.
Notice that Jesus promised to build His ‘church’ and gave Peter the keys of the ‘kingdom,’ Matthew 16:18-19. It seems to me that the words ‘church’ and ‘kingdom’ are both referring to one in the same place. If you’re in the church, you’re in the kingdom; if you’re in the kingdom, you’re in the church.
It would make no sense at all to say, ‘I will build a house and give you the keys to my car.’ But it would make sense to say, ‘I will build a car and give you the keys to my automobile,’ because both terms are used for the same thing. Jesus building His church is the same as Jesus building His kingdom, that same kingdom that Daniel prophesied about.
Notice, He gave Peter ‘keys’ plural, one key was used to open the way to God for the Jews in Acts 2 and another key was used to open the way to God for the Gentiles in Acts 10. Now, when Jesus said in ‘your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,’ Matthew 6:10. Did that kingdom come in the lifetime of Jesus?
Now, either Jesus’ kingdom came during His lifetime, Mark 9:1, or there are people walking around today who are at least two thousand years old! God’s kingdom did come, and it was established during the reign of the Roman Empire, just like Daniel said it would.
But this kingdom came with a price; it cost Jesus His very life to bring the church into existence, Acts 20:28. The church has always been God’s plan, even before the foundation of the earth. But He needed Jesus to come and crush Satan, He needed to fulfil the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through Israel as a nation, He needed Jesus to come to die and establish His church.
Now, all this may sound a little mysterious to you, but that’s ok because until Jesus died, it was a mystery to everyone else, too. Paul tells us why in Ephesians 3:7-12. Paul recognised he needed God’s grace, and he recognised that he needed to tell others that they too need God’s grace.
Paul says that those things that he preached weren’t conceived in the minds of religious men who thought up a way to be right with God; the riches of the grace of God were revealed to man by God. The word ‘mystery’ is ‘musterion’ in Greek, and Paul uses this word seven times in the Book of Ephesians and which means something that was once hidden.
So, what was the mystery? What was kept hidden in God? The mystery was the Gospel; if anyone believed in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, they could be saved. But it wasn’t just the Gospel that was a mystery; the whole concept of the church was a mystery too, Ephesians 5:25-32.
Satan and all the angelic beings didn’t know about the mystery that God had in store for the coming of the Son of God. And despite the prophets speaking about these things, they didn’t understand what they wrote, 2 Peter 1:20-21.
Satan knew that something was up concerning the fulfilment of the prophecy that God had made concerning his crushing, but he didn’t know the full story until Jesus was resurrected from the dead. And notice that phrase in Ephesians 3:11, ‘His eternal purpose’.
The plan of God to redeem mankind was accomplished in Christ, and the church was God’s plan before the creation of the world. Jesus had to die and rise from the grave in order to accomplish God’s eternal goal of reconciling all of mankind and bringing them to Himself through His Son.
And because of Jesus and our faith in Him, we can approach God with freedom and confidence. The concept of the Gospel, the concept of the church, was once hidden from mankind, but now Paul says, the whole plan has been revealed to mankind by God. Do you realise who you are and to whom you belong? Exodus 19:5-6.
Now, remember all the Israelites were supposed to be a kingdom of priests, but because they built a golden calf when Moses and Joshua were up the mountain, God punished them. And in Exodus 32, where the people had to choose sides, only the Levites stood with Moses, Exodus 32:25-26.
Because the Levites were the only ones for the Lord, they were chosen to serve as Priests in God’s tabernacle, and from that time on, only a Levite could serve in the tabernacle and the temple. But God’s original plan was for all the Israelites to go out and reconcile the world back to Him and to tell the nations around them about who He is.
Do you realise, if you’re a Christian, that you are a part of that same plan today? 1 Peter 2:9-10. The Israelites were a chosen people; Christians are a chosen people. The Israelites were to be a kingdom of priests; Christians are a part of a royal priesthood. The Israelites were a holy nation; Christians are a holy nation.
The Israelites were God’s treasured possession; Christians are God’s special possession. The Israelites weren’t a people; Christians are now a people. You are a Christian who belongs to God, why? Because God did something for you which you could never do for yourself, Revelation 1:5-6 / Colossians 1:13-14.
Do we understand that we couldn’t save ourselves? Do we really understand that we are sinners in need of rescuing? You can always tell the people who do understand, they are the ones who are always ‘declaring His praises’.
They’re always rejoicing in God for what He has done for them in the past and continues to do for them in their lives. They know that ‘once they were not a people, but now they are the people of God’. They know that ‘once they hadn’t received mercy, but now they have received mercy.’
If we truly believe that we belong to God and we truly believe that we are His people, those beliefs should be reflected in everything we do, say, and think, Proverbs 23:7.
The word ‘Christian’ isn’t a title; it’s who we are, it’s a reflection of who we belong to. And in every department of life, we should be demonstrating to the world what God is like and how life is to be lived in His kingdom, the church.
God wants us as His church to do what the nation of Israel failed to do, and that’s to go out into our world, to share with the people in our world how they can be reconciled back to God.