Four criteria for identifying the church of Jesus

The approach to Paul that considers he had a problem with his fellow Jews and Judaism is misleading. Paul is working with/under the Spirit to incorporate the Gentiles into Israel in keeping with the ‘last days’ prophecies of his scriptures. Paul is not working in a vacuum and so there are many incidental engagements with his fellow Jews reflected in his letters. He deals with problems and issues in his nascent communities. These aspects in his writing exist alongside the theology of his mission to the Gentiles.

Paul is working within the framework of the hopes and the faith of the Jews; his Christian groups exist as groups within the Jewish community, not least because they consist of many Jews.[1] He understands the ‘last days’ in terms of an impending destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. Paul is part of a beginning insofar as he is part of a preparation for the return of Christ. He is working in the spirit of John the Baptist. The beginning he preaches would come with the return of Christ. The restoration of Israel would likewise come with this return.

Paul has an eschatological message; he is not a Jewish itinerant preacher seeking to evangelize Gentile converts to the Jewish faith. New things were happening in God’s purpose with Israel in respect of the Law and Christ; in particular, there was a new covenant to proclaim; the Law had been fulfilled in Christ. This did not mean that the Law had been superseded in respect of its exemplary teaching. What the new covenant brought was a change with regards to the sacrifices for sin; hence, the destruction of the temple as a place of Mosaic sacrifice is required by the sacrifice of Christ. There was now a new basis for having a covenant relationship with God. Jews born under the Law[2] and baptised into Christ would remain so; Gentiles did not need to undergo a rite of passage in respect of the Law (1 Cor 7:18).

Incorporating Gentiles into the hope of Israel implies that the election of Israel remains a principle of Paul’s faith. There isn’t a ‘new people’ replacing the Jews, or one that exists alongside the Jews. Rather, the church is part of Israel, with Gentiles in the church remaining Gentiles. It follows that no church today can claim to be the heir of the first century church because they are not part of Israel – they parted ways with Israel in the 2c. Equally, no church today is the restoration of the first century church because no church today has emerged in and from Israel as part of a bestowal of the Spirit.

Three mutually exclusive criteria for identifying the church of Jesus can be suggested today:

• The church is that body which can trace its history back to the apostles in an unbroken sequence (Catholic Church).
• The church is that body (those bodies) that can trace its (their) history back to the apostles in an unbroken sequence, but which has reformed itself to rid itself of what was wrong in the Catholic Church (Reformation Churches).
• The church is that body (those bodies) that does (do) not trace any history back to the apostles, and which is a restoration of the church, teaching and practices of the apostles (Restoration Churches, e.g. Pentecostals, Christadelphians).

The church was that body which was built by Jesus in the first century through the bestowal of the Spirit, but it came to an end with the withdrawal of the Spirit and the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in AD70 and with the end of the Jewish Commonwealth. This means the first two criteria do not work. The question is whether Jesus is building a church today.

It might be argued that he is only building a church today if he is doing so through the bestowal of the Spirit as it was bestowed in the first century. On the other hand, it might be argued that just as John the Baptist was not Elijah, but came in the spirit of Elijah, so too Jesus might build his church today through a similar variation and application of that prophecy, i.e. through individuals and the Spirit-Word. This would validate the third criterion.

However, if the church is a part of Israel, even as regards the Gentiles, and if OT prophecies tie the church to Israel, then the church can only be a body that is tied to Israel. Claims to a bestowal of the Spirit on the part of any church today cannot be true if that bestowal has not originated in Israel. Equally, claims to be the church of Christ by any Gentile group unrelated to Israel cannot be right.

Accordingly, a fourth criterion suggests itself:

• A ‘church’ is a body which does not trace any history back to the apostles and does not claim to have restored the apostolic church, but which is comprised of Gentiles which band together in communities, variously named, and who hold the faith left behind by the apostles.

We propose that the correct criterion is the fourth but that Christians of all colours as well as non-Christians think that it is one of the first three criteria. In the history of Christianity, the first three criteria are common. The fourth has an individual emphasis and the word ‘church’ is in quotes suggesting that when individuals who hold the apostolic faith group together, they are not ‘the church’ restored from the apostolic era, even though the Father and the Son dwell with them. It is this idea which is radical and which has meant that the fourth criterion of identity has not been favoured down the ages.