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THE ONE CHURCH IS TIED TO OLD TESTAMENT TYPES

Victor M. Eskew

 

            “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things…” (Heb. 10:1).  The Holy Spirit reveals in this verse that the law contains shadows of things to come.  These are shadows of things to come in the New Testament.  These shadows are not the very image, but they are similitudes, representations, examples, models, and patterns of things to come in the Christian Age.  In this article, we want to examine three of these shadows very briefly.  They will establish the fact that the Lord only has one church in the Christian dispensation.

            One shadow is the tabernacle.  In Exodus 25:8, the Lord said:  “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I my dwell among them.”  Another name for this sanctuary is the tabernacle.  Eventually, Solomon would replace the tent with a stone temple in the city of Jerusalem.  Throughout the course of history, the Lord had only one sanctuary.  He never had two or three or four.  He only had one.  This sanctuary is a shadow of the church of the New Testament.  In Hebrews 8:2, the inspired penman refers to Jesus as “a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.”  This is cannot be referring to the Old Testament sanctuary because Jesus was not of the tribe of Levi (Heb. 7:14).  He is referring to the church.  Today, it is the temple of God (I Cor. 3:16-17).  Today, it is the house of God (I Tim. 3:15).  Christians are living stones.  They compose the spiritual house of God today (I Pet. 2:5).  Just as there was only one temple under the Old Covenant, there is just one temple under the new Covenant. 

            Another shadow is the nation of Israel.  God only had one nation that belonged to Him under the Law of Moses.  At the foot of Mount Sinai, God addressed the people of Israel with these words:  “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people:  for all the earth is mine:  and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation…” (Exo. 19:5-6).  God did not separate many nations unto Himself.  He separated only one.  This “holy nation” was a type of God’s people under the New Covenant.  Listen again from the pen of Peter:  “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew for the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (I Pet. 2:9).  Just as God only had one nation under the Old Covenant, He only has one nation under the New Covenant. 

            A third shadow under the Old Testament that represents the one church of the New Testament is found under the figure of a bride.  In the Old Testament, God proclaimed that Israel was His bride.  Through the prophet Isaiah, God spoke these words to Israel:  “For thy Maker is thine husband: the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.  For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God” (Isa. 54:5-6).  Because of this relationship God shared with Israel, He could charge them with adultery when they went after foreign gods (See Ezek. 16:30-32).  Under the New Testament, the Lord still only has one bride.  In Ephesians 5:22-33, Paul writes about the relationship between a husband and wife.  In verse 32, however, he makes an interesting statement.  “This is a great mystery:  but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”  He could say this because the church is the bride of Christ.  To the church at Corinth, this same apostle wrote about this relationship as well.  “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy:  for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (II Cor. 11:2).  Just as God only had one bride in the Old Testament, there is only one bride for the Lord today.  He does not have multiple wives.

            One tabernacle.  One nation.  One bride.  One church.  If multiple churches are acceptable to God today, then the types and shadows of the Old Covenant are useless.  They do not mean a thing.  Dear readers, this is not why God spent so much time producing these types.  He used them to prepare the nation of Israel for the spiritual things to come under the New Covenant.  Israel should have easily seen the images of the New Testament because they were familiar with the shadows of the Old Testament.  The one tabernacle was the shadow of the one true tabernacle, the church.  The one nation of Israel was the type of the holy nation, the church, under the New Testament.  The one bride was a representation of the one bride, the church, in the Christian Age. 

            “There is one body.”  This was affirmed by Paul in Ephesians 4:4.  This body is the church (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18).  Jesus promised to build only one church in Mathew 16:18.  There were not many tabernacles acceptable to God in the Old Testament.  There were not many nations that were in a covenant relationship with God in the Old Testament.  God did not have many brides under the Mosaic Dispensation.  This clearly teaches us that many churches are not acceptable to God today.  God has one church, the called out ones, that He has redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus Christ (Acts 20:28).