The Gathering of the People

Gen 49:10 says, “To Him shall the gathering of the people be.”. The word for gathering can also mean obedience. Obedience here does not refer to human works, but to the obedience that is worked in us by the covenant of grace. We obey because God has put it into our hearts to obey.

This gathering or obedience is seen throughout the Old Testament in the ecclesia and remnant. Though Israel turned away from God, He reserved a people through grace who were His called out people (1 Kings 19:18). This is the doctrine of the church that goes through the whole of scripture.

Isaiah said, “The children you have given Me are for signs and wonders.” (Is 8:18). According to Heb 2:13, Isaiah was referring to the church. This means that by the Holy Spirit Isaiah saw at least in part the glory of Christ and His church gathered to Him. Isaiah from chapter 40 onwards spoke of the multitudes bought into Christ’s kingdom. David saw this and spoke of it throughout the Psalms when referring to Christ’s assembly.

According to Dispensationalism the church was an after thought of God, when the Jews rejected Christ. They say that the church is merely a gap period, until the Jewish nation is saved. They say that the church is not the ultimate goal of God foretold by prophecy and typology in the Old Testament. They say that the church was not foreseen and expected in the Old Covenant. Yet the church of Jesus Christ is a major theme of all the prophets.

The church of today is not a parenthesis period. The church is the ongoing fulfilment of the Old Covenant shadow. It was always the plan of God’s to be fulfilled through His Seed, Christ. The church has fulfilled God’s promises to Israel and included in it the Gentiles. Glory to God!