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and in harmony with the great basic SPIRITUAL law of LOVE--the
Ten Commandments---the principle of GIVING, and of humility and
dependence upon God.
The civil laws were administered by JUDGES. The church
ceremonies, sacrifices, and rituals, were administered by the
PRIESTS---the Levites. It was, incidentally, a FLESH-born
church, not a Spirit-born church. Every man, woman, and child in
the nation was a member of the one church. Membership came by
BIRTH. There was no promise of receiving the Holy Spirit, or of
salvation or eternal life. Only the prophets and leaders had
God's Spirit.
MISSION of OLD Testament Church
Now we come to an important point.
The MISSION---the PURPOSE and FUNCTION of the OLD
Testament Church was not evangelistic. When God first called
them out of Egypt to be His Church, He did not say to them: "Go
ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to all nations."
Neither did He give them this commission at Mt. Sinai--or at any
other time or place, during the Old-Covenant Church!
Rather, they were to have absolutely NOTHING to do with
Gentiles whatever! They came to consider Gentiles as dogs and
mongrels--as unclean. They would not so much as eat with a
Gentile. When God sent Peter to preach the first NEW-Testament
sermon to Gentiles, under the NEW Covenant, you remember Peter
felt he should not carry the Gospel to Gentiles, and God had to
give him the vision of the sheet filled with unclean animals
before he would go. Upon return, Peter was called to task by his
brother-apostles, until he explained how God had shown him the
Gospel now was to be carried to ALL nations. (See Acts 10 and 11).
What, then, was the function of the OLD Testament Church?
It was concerned with a constant round of RITUAL---sacrifices,
meat and drink offerings, carnal (physical) ordinances, washings,
etc., of the Law of Moses. Consider, then, how DIFFERENT was the
Church of that day from the true NEW Testament church!
Every citizen, remember, was a member of that one CHURCH,
the Congregation of Israel. If we had that kind of condition
today, every family in Cottage Grove would belong to the ONE
CHURCH. In Eugene, in Portland, in Vancouver, in Everett, it
would be the same. Just ONE CHURCH, and every man, woman, and
child in the city would be a member. There was not just ONE
minister in each town or city---or one for several. There were
scores, or hundreds of priests for each city the size of some of
ours. About every twelfth man (one whole TRIBE of the twelve
tribes) was a priest!
And now what was the FUNCTION of those MINISTERS? It was
to minister, solely, to the LOCAL congregation---to officiate at
all these continual ordinances, sacrifices, rituals, washings,
and services. The priests of the OLD Testament Church had no
duty but to minister to the LOCAL congregations! We shall see