Those who decide that the claims made about him are true comprise what is called the Christian Church. And in the life of the Church God continues to be active, to work, to reveal himself. Before we explore that notion we must remind ourselves that the Church did not just suddenly spring into existence "from scratch" about A.D. 30. The early Christians, as a matter of fact, often referred to themselves as the "new Israel," suggesting that they stood in a continuity with the old Israel. And the old Israel, as we have seen, was a nation called out, set apart, through whom God revealed himself. The Israelites came to see that they must be "a light to the nations" ( Isa. 42: 6), that is, that they in their turn must make known to the rest of the world the God with whom they stood in such intimate relationship.
Now this is precisely the task which the New Testament claims fell upon the Christian Church. The early Christians tried to spread the "good news" of what God had done in Christ to all men across the face of the earth. The "new Israel" took upon itself the job that the old Israel did not do because the old Israel did not accept Jesus as the promised Messiah. So from the Christian standpoint, the task of the Jewish nation is picked up and becomes the task of the Christian Church. And the claim is that through the history of that ongoing community, as recorded in both the Old and the New Testaments, the activity of the everliving God is still revealed. A quick look at the book of The Acts, for example, one of the most exciting documents in all literature, will show you how in the life of the Christian community the power and presence of the living God continued to be manifested in new ways. Since God is living and not dead, his activity does not cease at any point in time, but continues through the channel of his appointing -the fellowship of believers known as the Church.
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