Renewal Theology

J. Rodman Williams

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780310873679
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Renewal Theology deals with the full range of Christian truth from within the charismatic tradition. Previously published as three separate volumes, Renewal Theology represents the first exhaustive, balanced articulation of charismatic theology. Renewal Theology discusses: Book One--God, the World, and Redemption - Book Two--Salvation, the Holy Spirit, and Christian Living - Book Three--The Church, the Kingdom, and Last Things. As theology, this work is an intellectual achievement. But it is much more than that. The author urges the church to undertake its task of theology in the proper spirit: - an attitude of prayer - a deepening sense of reverence - an ever-increasing purity of heart - a spirit of growing love - a theological approach rooted in the glory of God. Done in such a spirit, theology becomes a faithful and powerful witness to the living God.

Volume Three

Renewal
Theology

The Church,
the Kingdom,
and Last Things

PREFACE

This volume of Renewal Theology is divided into two parts: “The Church” and “Last Things.”

Part 1 begins with a definition of the church. Then such matters as the scope of the church, various descriptions of the nature of the church, and diverse functions of the church are considered. This leads to a discussion of ministry in the church, the ordinances (or sacraments), and the relation of the church to civil government.

Part 2 begins with a brief study of the kingdom of God and after that focuses on the return of Jesus Christ. From the perspective that the return of Christ is the great event yet to occur, such matters as the signs, manner, and purpose of His return are considered next. Finally, after reflection on the millennial question, the book concludes with a study of the final judgment and the consummation in the new heaven and new earth.

Renewal Theology: The Church, the Kingdom, and Last Things is the third in a series of volumes. The first two are subtitled, respectively, God, the World, and Redemption and Salvation, the Holy Spirit, and Christian Living. This present volume brings to a close a study of the full round of Christian doctrines.

I again extend gratitude to Regent University for helping to make this book possible: to Pat Robertson, Chancellor; David Gyertson, President; George Selig, Provost; and Jerry Horner, Dean of the College of Theology and Ministry. I am particularly grateful to my faculty colleagues Charles Holman, Jon Ruthven, Joseph Umidi, and Owen Weston, and to Herbert Titus, Dean of the College of Law and Government, for reading various portions of the material and offering many helpful suggestions. Mark Wilson has again rendered invaluable service by the initial editing of the book, and Daniel Gilbert, my graduate assistant, has likewise been of much help in checking Scripture and bibliographical data. I am also thankful to the students at Regent University in my course Church and Last Things for their lively input.

I also extend appreciation to Gerard Terpstra of Zondervan Publishing House, who for the third time has done the final editing of Renewal Theology.

My gratitude to my wife, Jo, is unlimited. She has put all the material on computer and continued to encourage me over the long process. To her I gladly dedicate this volume.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Part One THE CHURCH

1. Definition

2. Scope

3. Description

4. Functions

5. Ministry

6. Ordinances

7. The Church and Civil Government

Part Two LAST THINGS

8. The Kingdom of God

9. The Return of Jesus Christ

10. Signs

11. The Manner of Christ’s Return

12. The Purpose of Christ’s Return

13. The Millennium

14. The Last Judgment

15. The Consummation

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Part One
THE CHURCH

1
Definition

The word church¹ is the usual translation of the Greek word ekklēesia.² The word ekklēesia (plural: ekklēesiai) occurs 114 times in the New Testament, and, with four exceptions in the Book of Acts³ and one in the Book of Hebrews,⁴ is translated throughout as “church” (or “churches”). In the Gospels church occurs only three times, all in Matthew;⁵ nineteen times in Acts; in Paul’s letters sixty-two times (most frequently in 1 Corinthians, twenty-two times); in Hebrews, James, and 3 John five times; and in the Book of Revelation twenty times. The word church does not occur in Mark, Luke, John, 2 Timothy, Titus, 1 and 2 Peter, 1 and 2 John, and Jude. It is apparent that the word belongs largely to the period following the life and ministry of Jesus.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Old Testament

In the New Testament there are two places where in reference to the Old Testament the word ekklēesia is usually translated “assembly” or “congregation”: Acts 7:38⁶ and Hebrews 2:12.⁷ In the former, Stephen spoke of “the ekklēesia in the wilderness,” referring particularly to the occasion at Mount Sinai when Moses received the Ten Commandments. Moses, alluding to that event in Deuteronomy 10:4, spoke of the Ten Commandments as given “out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.”⁸ Thus the ekklēesia was the coming together, the assembling, of the people of Israel. It was the congregation of Israel understood in a dynamic sense as the assembled gathering.⁹ Hebrews 2:12 reads: “I will proclaim thy name to my brethren, in the midst of the ekklēesia I will praise thee.” This is a quotation from Psalm 22:22: “I will tell of Thy name to my brethren; In the midst of the assembly¹⁰ I will praise Thee” (NASB). Ekklesia in both Acts 7:38 and Hebrews 2:12 refers to the active assembly of the people of Israel whether for hearing the law or offering up praise.

B. The Greek State

The word ekklēesia was also used in the Greek world of New Testament times to refer to political assembly. The assembly consisted of the citizens of a Greek city. In this connection ekklēesia, translated “assembly,” occurs three times in Acts 19. The citizens of Ephesus had rushed together to defend their goddess Artemis against the gospel: “Some cried one thing, some another; for the assembly was in confusion” (v. 32). The town clerk finally quieted the crowd, gave some advice, and added, “But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular¹¹ assembly” (v. 39). After a few more words, the clerk “dismissed the assembly” (v. 41).

The “assembly,” ekklēesia, in this incident obviously conveys the note of coming together. The “regular assembly” refers more to official occasions when citizens in a Greek city were called from their usual duties to meet together to act on civic and political affairs.

C. Summary

It is significant that the references in both the Old Testament and Acts 19 to the ekklēesia allude to an assemblage of people. The Israelites and the Greeks were called from their regular activities and ordinary responsibilities into assembly. While the ekklēesia primarily refers to the ongoing congregation of Israel and to a regular assembly of Greek citizens, there is also the dynamic and active sense of a people called for a particular purpose and activity.

II. THE CHURCH AS “CALLED”

Let us now move on to the predominant use of ekklēesia in the New Testament, where the translation is invariably “church.” We may properly define the church as “the assembly of the called.”

A. Called Out

The church consists of those who have been “called out.” This is its basic meaning. The word ekklēesia is derived from two Greek words, ek, “out,” and kaled, “call” ; hence the church is composed of “called out” people.¹² However—and here is the great difference—the calling is not from ordinary responsibilities but from the dark situation of sin and evil.

In this connection Paul writes the churches (the ekklēesiai) of Galatia that Christ “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of [ek] this present evil age” (1:4 NASB). The church accordingly is composed of those “delivered out,” hence “called out” ones. Peter, while not speaking of the church by name, speaks similarly in describing his readers (“God’s scattered people”¹³ [1 Peter 1:1 NEB]) as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,” and then adds that God has “called¹⁴ [them] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). Thus the church consists of those “called out” of darkness into light. Two other references in Paul’s letters are noteworthy. He writes Timothy that God has “saved us and called us with a holy calling”¹⁵ (2 Tim. 1:9). Hence “saved” ones are “called” ones; thus they are the ek-klēesia. Paul begins his first Corinthian letter with these words: “Paul … to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling”¹⁶ (1 Cor. 1:2 NASB). The church is composed of those “sanctified” in Christ, that is, “saints” through their call from God. To sum up, the church by definition consists of those called out of the world—delivered, saved, sanctified—whatever the terminology. The church is the ek-klēesia.

This is apparent likewise from the perspective of the church on the Day of Pentecost. Peter proclaimed to the assembled multitude, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” (Acts 2:40 NASB). His was a call to come out of the perversity and evil of the world: it was a call to salvation. Hence when some three thousand persons that day “received his word were baptized” (v. 41), this signified their salvation. Truly this was the establishment of the church in Jerusalem:¹⁷ a “saved” people. They came out of the past into a new life in Christ.

The church thus is characterized by an event. It consists of those who have actually made the transition from lostness to salvation. Such people are the church—the called-out ones. Clearly if this event of calling out has not occurred, there is no church; the word church is evacuated of all meaning. The church in its very being is constituted by an event:¹⁸ the event of salvation.

The important thing to bear in mind is the dynamic character of the church. People who constitute the church have been “called out” from sin and lostness, and as such are the ek-klēesia. Again, if this event has not occurred, there is no church, whatever claims a gathering of people might make for themselves. Moreover, individuals may be called “church members,” but if they have not been called out, they do not truly belong. The church is the ekklēesia of the redeemed.

B. Called Together

In addition, the church is the assemblage of those who are called. Like the Israelites who came together in assembly, so also is the church an assemblage of believers. The church is the gathered community of believers. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians about a certain matter, says, “When you come together as a church …”¹⁹ (1 Cor. 11:18 NIV, NASB). The church is the assemblage itself. Paul speaks of “the church of the Thessalonians” (1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1), which emphasizes that the church is the actual gathering of the believers in Thessalonica. The church obviously is not a building or even a place; it is the assembly of believers wherever they come together.

This does not mean that there is no continuity. The Greek citizens were an ekklēesia only when they assembled; after that the ekklēesia ceased to exist until the next occasion.²⁰ There was no ekklēesia in the Greek city-state between the called meetings. Unlike this, Paul speaks of the church “at Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2; see also 2 Cor. 1:1) or “in Corinth” (NIV)²¹ and “the church in Cenchrea” (Rom. 16:1 NIV). In Acts there are references to “the church in Jerusalem” (8:1; 11:22) and “the church at Antioch” (13:1), and in the Book of Revelation there are messages to “the church in Ephesus” (2:1) and elsewhere.²² Thus although the church has the being of an event and is basically an assemblage of believers, there is continuity. The church in Corinth, and elsewhere, has an abiding reality.

Further, the church, while being an assemblage of believers, is more than just a collection of individuals. This was surely true of the Old Testament assemblage: it was a people, a nation, who gathered at Mount Sinai. They met together as a corporate entity. As a people they had been brought out of Egypt, and as a people they gathered on “the day of assembly.” Similarly the New Testament depicts the church as a redeemed people. For example, Paul speaks of “the church … which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28 NASB). Thus the New Testament ekklēesia is called together as those who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ and are corporately united in Him. In Ephesians Paul addresses the saints as “the faithful in Christ Jesus” (1:1–2 NIV), “in” signifying that the believers were “incorporate in Christ Jesus” (the NEB translation).²³ Thus the church is not only “saved” individuals coming together in assembly; it is also, and more profoundly, a people whom God has redeemed who come together unitedly as His church.

To be more specific, we may observe the situation in Acts on the Day of Pentecost. After Peter’s message “Be saved from this perverse generation” had gone forth and people responded in faith and baptism, “there were added that day about three thousand souls” (2:41). The relevant matter is the expression “there were added,” “added” referring to the approximately one hundred and twenty believers (see Acts 1:5) to whom they were now joined. The Scripture does not say that as a large ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• CONTENTS
• Renewal Theology: God, the World, and Redemption
• Renewal Theology: Salvation, the Holy Spirit, and Christian Living
• Renewal Theology: The Church, the Kingdom, and Last Things
• Copyright
• About the Publisher
• Share Your Thoughts