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The Synogogue of Christ

Steve Schlissel

The point is that the church itself in the New Testament was more a school than a temple.
-Chalcedon Position Paper #1

The training of...mature men is the function of the church. The purpose of the church should not be to bring men into subjection to the church, but rather to train them into a royal priesthood capable of bringing the world into subjection to Christ the King.
-The Institutes of Biblical Law (Volume 1), p.764

The church wasn't born at Pentecost. It was Bar Mitzvah'd. No small matter, this. The church had a long, albeit dotted, history by the time the Spirit in Christ's fullness fell, and a glorious, albeit difficult, future. By Pentecost, the church, because of its history, its providentially-ordained organization and the Holy Spirit's promised guidance, was well-prepared to fulfill its function in the world

The Belgic Confession, in Article XXVII, states, We believe and profess one catholic or universal Church...This Church has been from the beginning of the world, and will be to the end thereof... It has not, however, always had the same form. In the Garden of Eden God identified and separated the church (then consisting of two) using the essential elements, Word and Sacrament, Promise and Token, which would be present throughout the church's history, in some form or another. Our first parents were created to understand themselves and all things else in terms of a word. They had received the defining Word of God; they had heard the anti-word of the serpent. Choosing the devil's definitions, they had broken covenant with their Creator and entered into league with the destroyer, becoming co-pretenders with him to the throne.

God was not about to forsake His purposes, or to quickly formulate a Plan B. He graciously and forcefully took back Adam and Eve-He redeemed them-by placing hostility between them and their new master (the Antithesis), by promising in their hearing the incarnation of the conquering, suffering Messiah (the Protevangelium, first proclamation of the Gospel), and by clothing them with God-provided coverings (the Sacrament), indicating in the clearest terms that their fig leaves (their instinctive effort at self-atonement/covering) were wholly inadequate and unacceptable. It is God who saves. Calvinism did not originate in Geneva; it is found in Eden. God's people, the covenant line, would henceforth be the people redeemed by Him to live, once again, in terms of His Word.

FROM EDEN TO ISAAC

This Word would be developmentally revealed in accordance with God's purposes and the circumstances-ordained by Him-in which the church found itself. It would reach its fullness after the promised Savior arrived, after he had fully accomplished His work in the estate of humiliation, and firmly inaugurated His work in the estate of exaltation. The full and final Word in terms of which God's people must, and all people ought to, live is the Word of God which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, i.e., the whole Bible. The tokens identifying and comforting the people of God would also admit of changes in history, until they reached their normative and simple state in Christ's institutions of Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

After hearing his sentence pronounced, and after our first parents' expulsion from the Garden, Satan seeks to undermine God's purposes and God's people in an effort to forestall the arrival of the Promised One. He does this by a twofold method which has not undergone categorical change since: the devil endeavors to remove the church from the world (seeking its destruction), or remove it from the Word (through seduction). The hostility predicated in the Antithesis of Genesis 3:15 was very soon revealed in the respective approaches to God of Cain (the covenant-breaker) and Abel (the covenant-keeper). God, in the Garden, implicitly required blood, a substitutionary death, as the first step of faith a sinner must take in drawing near to the Holy One. Cain was apparently offended by the requirement of a blood sacrifice, just as he was offended by God's counsel to Him to do the right thing (Gen. 4:1-7). [***Note #1 It is wholly unnecessary to debate, as theologians have been wont to do, whether God found unacceptable Cain's actual offering or his apparent lack of faith. Hebrews 11:4, read with Genesis 4:5, makes it clear that it was both: God didn't like his gift or his attitude. End of Note#1***] Rather than approach God as per God's prescription, he sought to eliminate the competition (perhaps with the insane thought that God would have to accept him now, in virtue of his monopoly).

Of course, God's church, though briefly set back, is not defeated by this persecution. Soon God would raise up another covenant-keeper in the person of Seth. In his day, the church would advance as men began to call upon the name of the LORD (Gen. 4:26). Many orthodox commentators have understood this to mean that God was now worshiped in a more public and solemn manner; praying being here put for the whole worship of God (Matthew Poole, in loc. cit.). Poole goes on, The sense is this: Then when the world was universally corrupt, and had forsaken God and his service, good men grew more valiant and zealous for God, and did more publicly and avowedly own God, and began to distinguish themselves from the ungodly world, and to call themselves and one another by the name of God, i.e., the sons, servants, or worshippers of God as they are expressly called...

For our purposes we will call attention only to the fact that this corporate calling upon the LORD seems to have arisen by divine permission or providence rather than by express divine instruction. It is obvious that blood sacrifice in faith continued to occupy first place in the approach to God throughout the patriarchal period. Consider Genesis 8:20-21; 12:7; 13:18; 22:8-13; 26:25 (q.v., and cf. Gen. 4:26); 33:20; Job 1:1-5; etc. The worship of the church is performed in the light of the first promise in Eden, and in confidence that God will redeem those who come to Him in faith in accordance with His will. The worship of the church is decentralized during this period. The remarkable incident with Melchizedek suggests that in those times God had his remnant scattered here and there even in the worst places and nations (Poole on Gen. 14:18). Further, the lack of detailed prescriptions apart from these general requirements suggests latitude in form, given the presence of the requisite elements.

OF TRACKS AND TIERS

At the time of the giving of the Law sharp differences appear, chief of which are the centralization of sacrificial worship and the provision of a corpus of detailed instruction regulating it. What is important to note-because nearly universally overlooked-is the fact that with the giving of the Law God instituted and maintained a two-tiered track governing the life and worship of the church. This two-tiered track which would remain in force until the time of our Lord Jesus Christ (though each track will undergo respective changes during the waiting period). At the Ascension, the upper deck would be lifted into heaven (to which it had always testified-Hebrews 9), and from that fixed location, be the Temple in terms of which the lower deck, the Synagogue of Christ, or, the Church, derives its meaning.

Think of the movement of form like this: The Verrazano Bridge (the most beautiful in the world, of course) connects Brooklyn and Staten Island. The Interstate leading up to it from Brooklyn has several lanes but only one level. The Bridge, however, has an upper and lower deck. When you arrive in Staten Island you're back on a single level. Similarly, the decentralized worship of the pre-Mosaic period of the church (the Interstate leading up to the bridge) focused on faith (in God's Word), the presence of the requisite elements of worship (sacrifice) and prayer. When we get to the Mosaic period, the bridge which will take us to the Christian era breaks out into an upper and lower deck.

The institution of tabernacle/temple, which we'll call the upper deck, is clearly the more prominent track from Moses to Christ. It is characterized by exclusivity- sacrifices henceforth being acceptable only if offered at the place where God causes His name to specially dwell, ultimately the temple at Jerusalem. It is also characterized by rigorous particularity and punctiliousness, so much so that seemingly minor infractions of worship order were punishable by death (e.g., using the incense ingredients for any another purpose, touching the ark or other holy things, casually approaching God, or approaching Him in the Most Holy Place on any occasion or in any manner other than that which is prescribed by Him in the Law). [***Note # 2 It should be noted that under extraordinary circumstances, God allowed latitude even in matters pertaining to the temple and sacrifice. See, for example, the Lord honoring Hezekiah's prayer for toleration of deviation from ceremonial prescriptions in view of prevailing conditions and the sincerity of the seekers (2 Chronicles 30:17-20). Furthermore, development in the lower deck (decentralized) elements of Passover observance (not to mention other feasts) is hardly appreciated by modern regulativists. The Seder observed by Christ was nearly entirely the product of covenant evolution. Where, e.g., does the Law call for cups of wine as the skeleton around which the Seder is to be constructed? Yet, a technical name for a particular Seder cup, the cup of blessing, was directly imported into the Christian community (1 Corinthians 10:16). End of Note#2 ***]

Sacrifice would now be confined to one location in order that the entire sacrificial system, and the laws regulating it, may better serve as the tutor leading to Christ (Galatians 3:24; 4:2). But the worship, broadly considered, of the covenant community is by no means so confined or specialized. God makes provision for covenant instruction, covenant worship and covenant continuity in the areas outside Jerusalem by providing a decentralized, indeed a deliberately scattered, Levitical order. The Levites, qualified by God and given by Him to assist the priests at the temple service in Jerusalem (Numbers 3:9), were also charged with providing instruction in God's Law throughout Israel (Deuteronomy 33:8, 10; 2 Chronicles 35:3; cf. Nehemiah 8:7 and Malachi 2:4-8). The priests could serve as priests only at the temple in Jerusalem, but the Levites could help the priests in Jerusalem or serve as ministers and teachers throughout the covenant realm. Keep your eye on the lower deck.

THE ROOT OF THE SYNAGOGUE

In Leviticus 23 we have the listing of the appointed feasts of Israel. Most of them involved special priestly services to be performed at the tabernacle/temple. But heading the list of sacred assemblies is the Lord's Sabbath: There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the LORD (NIV).

It is of particular importance to note that, a) This day was to be observed throughout the land (wherever you live in the NIV, or, in all your dwellings in the KJV); b) it was to be honored by the cessation of all ordinary work; and c) it was to be a day of sacred assembly. No further instruction is to be found regarding the character of or elements involved in these sacred assemblies apart from the command that they are to occur. This is the elusive root of the synagogue system: [***Note #3 Bannerman, in The Scripture Doctrine of the Church (Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1887, pp. 123-4) notes that the Apostles understood the synagogue system to be of venerable antiquity. 'From generations of old,' one of the leaders of the Hebrew Christian Church at Jerusalem said...How far back do these 'generations' go? Vitringa, in his first book of his great work, De Synagoga Vetere, considers with characteristic thoroughness all the references to worship in the Old Testament from the creation onwards...but fails to find the synagogue anywhere before the exile. We do not quarrel with this so long as it be granted, as Bannerman seems to, that We may recognise a preparation for the synagogue system before that date, that the same objects were sought and attained by other means in a partial and preliminary way... We are only concerned to demonstrate that God was worshiped decentrally and without rigid regulation, before Moses as well as during and after the establishment of the Levitical order. End of Note#3***] a decentralized, loosely regulated gathering of God's people for the express purpose of imitating Him in ceasing from labor on the seventh day, and praising Him in sacred assembly as Creator (Exodus 20:8-11) and Redeemer (Deuteronomy 5:15).

If we disallow the claims of the Jews to the divine authenticity of the Oral Law, we are led to conclude that these decentralized sacred assemblies, while divinely commanded, were not divinely regulated in their particulars (other than that they be gatherings to worship the true God, presumably including instruction in His Word and covenant dealings). If this is so, then the command of Deuteronomy 12:32, Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it, has primary and particular reference to the priestly system (the upper deck) and only general, principled reference to decentralized worship.

Deuteronomy 12 is explicitly providing guidance for the upper deck, centralized sacrificial system: You shall not at all do as we are doing here today-every man doing what is right in his own eyes-for as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the LORD your God is giving you. But when you cross the Jordan and dwell in the land...then there will be the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide. There you shall bring what I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, and all the choice offerings which you vow to the LORD (12:8-11 NKJV).

Further commands in the context reveal God's concern that His people not be tempted to sacrifice- as they lived their everyday lives outside the city where His name would dwell-their daily victuals to another god (verses 20-22), that they not seek their life in sacrificial or other blood, as the Canaanites did, but rather in Him (verses 23-25), and that holy things, vowed things and burnt offerings be brought and offered only at the central location designated by God (verses 26-28). And the verses immediately preceding the command not to add or take away forbid even an inquiry into how these abominable nations worshiped their abominable false gods, as if it were permissible to follow them. For these nations went so far as to sacrifice their own sons and daughters (29-31), something which God would never require (Jeremiah 7:31; 19:5; 32:35).

The entire passage, then, deals with what will become the primary concern of the upper deck: the centralized, sacrificial system leading-through types, shadows and explication-to the one efficacious sacrifice of Christ. Decentralized covenant worship had heretofore included sacrifice and prayer in light of the Word of God. The sacrificial elements, which were divinely revealed early on (Genesis 3-4), were now being relegated exclusively to the place God would choose for His name to dwell. The other prayerful assemblies responding to His Word seem to have arisen less by express command than by a divinely-originating impulse in the hearts of worshipers to call upon His name. Here, at Sinai, the course of covenant divides into upper and lower decks.

The employment of Deuteronomy 12:32, then, to establish a so-called regulative principle for the non-sacrificing (though sacrifice-of-Christ-believing!) church of Christ-which, we shall see, is patterned after the lower deck, synagogue model-is misguided and untenable. In its worst forms, it has led to the monstrous arrogation by some of a supposed right to excommunicate Christians for, as it were, worshiping God without a license. In its best forms it has hindered the confessional unity of the church. Whatever positive norms are to guide the decentralized sacred assemblies will not be discovered here, for here we find only universally applicable prohibitions: No one, anywhere, at any time, may sacrifice children, no one is permitted to consume blood (so as to gain life) and no one anywhere may worship another god (do you hear anticipations of Acts 15:28 & 29 here?).

It would seem that the local assemblies knew what not to do. But if, as regulativists claim, no one may add to the worship-regulating Word of God as per Deuteronomy 12:32, the decentralized sacred assemblies could not do anything at all, for the sacrifices and offerings (the only positive elements) now had to be made at Central. The local gatherings commanded in Leviticus 23:3 would be utterly vacuous.

Leviticus 23:3, then, implicitly endorses the use of sanctified covenant sense, first glimpsed in Genesis 4:26, to order decentralized worship. Sacrifice, not the Word of God, was restricted to Jerusalem. Worship is the appropriate response to God's self-disclosure. What constituted right sacrifice and offering was revealed from above. The other elements of worship-prayer, praise, petition and instruction-seem to have arisen rather spontaneously through (yes, Spirit-prompted) men on earth. Covenant men gathered for simple prayer and praise, and to publicly show themselves to be God's people, believers in His covenant Word, supplicators of His blessing, and those who rest according to the pattern revealed in Genesis 1 and 2. The only alternatives to this view, it seems to this author, are 1) Talmudism (the suggestion of a secondary divinely-inspired code apart from Scripture to justify the belief that decentralized services were strictly regulated), or 2) the suggestion that God, in fact, did not intend to be worshiped at all outside Jerusalem, after sacrifice was restricted to that place.

SOLOMON TO NEHEMIAH

At the very time the tabernacle was absorbed into the temple service, however, Solomon makes quite clear that God was and would be sought, worshiped and adored outside the precincts of Jerusalem. Perhaps it should first be noted that at the dedication of the temple, Solomon was completely self-conscious regarding its typical character, publicly avowing that heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built! Though there would be a manifest presence of God among His people through the temple, Solomon asked that God would, when prayer was directed toward this place, hear in heaven (1 Kings 8:30, 34, 36, etc.).

Moreover, He was asked to be attentive to the prayers made in faith beyond Jerusalem's borders. When an enemy besieges them in any of their cities [literally, in the land (in) its gates]...whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your people Israel, when each one knows the plague of his own heart, and spreads out his hands toward this temple: then hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for you alone know the hearts of all the sons of men), that they may fear You all the days that they live in the land which you gave to our fathers (37-39).

Solomon also prayed that foreigners who would come and worship the true God would be answered and would then take back the knowledge of God to their (temple-less) lands (41-43). And he prayed that when God's people would go out to battle, wherever You send them, and they pray to the Lord toward this city and temple, then hear in heaven their prayer... And he also asked that God would hear the prayers of His people outside the land, when they make supplication to You in the land of those who took them captive...when they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who led them away captive (47, 48).

Sacrifice was restricted to Jerusalem, not worship. Thus we read the lament of Asaph in Psalm 74, mourning the devastation wrought by Babylon: They burned Your sanctuary to the ground; they defiled the dwelling place of Your name to the ground. They said in their hearts, 'Let us destroy them altogether.' They have burned up all the meeting places of God in the land (vv. 7-8). The ancients were more self-conscious than we that war is religious in nature, and thus the Babylonians sought to destroy not only the temple, but all the meeting places where God was worshiped. The word translated meeting places in the NKJV is a technical term for congregation and, by extension, the place of meeting. Some scholars, embarrassed by this apparent confirmation of synagogue-like places existing before the exile, have tried various ways to dismiss it. [***Note #4 Curiously, Calvin is among them; but see Bannerman's note treating Calvin's solution on p.123 of The Scripture Doctrine of the Church.

End of Note# 4***]

The NIV Study Bible boldly suggests that there may have been a number of (illegitimate) [***Note #5 Illegitimate is inserted in parentheses as per the source.

End of Note# 5***] places in Judah where people went to worship God. But if these meeting places were illegitimate why would a divinely-inspired author lament their destruction? Josiah and other reformers certainly never lamented the land being cleansed of false worship! No. These were lower deck, decentralized gathering places. The regulations concerning them dealt primarily with what they could not do. But since prayer and instruction in the Word are appropriate for all places at all times, it was inevitable that worship centers would arise wherever the covenant faith took up residence in the hearts of a few.

Of course, by the time of the exile and the return we do begin to see some codification in the synagogue system. Again, it is vital to note that so far as we know, none of the code was divinely and specially revealed. On the contrary, it arose as the community of faith identified a covenant need. Then, according to circumstance and necessity, propriety and opportunity, reason and debate [***Note #6 You know what they say: Two Jews, three opinions-and each one firmly held! End of Note#6 ***] , a regimen developed around a solid core.

Bannerman correctly notes that in Nehemiah 8, all the elements of a synagogue service present themselves. We have public prayer and thanksgiving 'in the congregation'...We have the people themselves taking earnest part in the service, and answering 'Amen' at the close of prayers. We have the reading and explanation of Scriptures by Ezra and other teachers from a raised pulpit or platform of wood, with marked impression and spiritual results for the audience. [***Note # 7 Ibid, p.124. End of Note# 7***]

One could suggest that the whole scene was, in fact, too smooth and easy to have been occurring for the first time. And indeed, the Jewish Encyclopedia under Synagogue, says, it can be assumed that the returned exiles brought with them the rudiments of that institution. But whatever similarities we discover in Nehemiah 8 with later synagogue-and eventually church-worship, there are as many and more differences. A partial list: This gathering took place on a Leviticus 23 holy day, it was led by priests and Levites, it was presided over by at least 14 leaders, the governor had a leading role in the worship service as governor, the reading service alone was three hours, the people bowed down with their noses to the ground, their sole earnest participation consisted of Amen-ing the Word, there was no congregational singing, and the whole service was conducted in the public square.

Of course, these differences present no problem if we remember that strictness of positive regulation belonged to the upper deck. As the Jewish Encyclopedia points out, it is germane to draw attention to the fact that the establishment of the synagogue implies the evolution of standard forms of service.

By the time of Ezra/Nehemiah, the synagogue had attained this much form: in a community where there lived 120 Jews, a synagogue could be established if there were ten men of leisure to insure that it was maintained. Devout Jews (in the exile) would gather in an upper room with an open window facing Jerusalem (cf. Daniel 6:10). Praise and prayer, reading from and instruction in the Word, came to form the nucleus of the service.

Synagogues quickly multiplied into every area where the Jews were scattered. The worship of God, the teaching of His Word, and extending mercy toward His people was the threefold raison d'être of the synagogue. Education was (and continues to be) vitally important, essential, indispensable. [***Note #8 An alternate name for synagogue, and the one commonly used by my Jewish community, is shul (Yiddish for school, though there are equivalent pedagogical titles in Hebrew). While I was growing up in Brooklyn, our custom was not to say, We are going to synagogue, but always to shul. End of Note#8 ***]

With the establishment and early codification of the synagogue system, the office of scribe (expert in the law, lawyer) flourished. It was not long, however, before the so-called wall around the Torah, the additional laws and customs invented by this new expert-class, began to push the Law of God itself from center stage.

In the Time of Our Lord

Four hundred years later, by the time of our Lord's sojourn, the synagogue-and the traditions of men-were both firmly established. Jesus had no objection to the former, for it did not void or replace the temple but constructively supplemented it. But He had scathing, holy contempt for the latter because tampering with the Word did have the effect of voiding it, displacing it (see Mark 7:9-13). Form on the lower deck was of far less concern to our Lord than content and function.

It was Jesus' custom to attend synagogue services on Shabbos (Luke 4:16). [***Note # 9 Perhaps Jesus saw in Leviticus 23:3 justification for synagogues outside Jerusalem (though there were many inside Jerusalem, as well), or perhaps He did not endorse the regulative principle for the lower deck, or perhaps both.

End of Note#9 ***] It was in the synagogue at Nazareth that He first (dramatically!) announced His Messiahship at the head of His sermon (Luke 4:14-27). [***Note #10 The sermon had been well-received (v. 22) until He mentioned God's prerogative to save Gentiles. The crowd didn't like that at all. This would be the major issue between Christ and His Apostles on one side, and the Jews on the other, throughout the Gospels and to the end of the Book of Acts. End of Note#10 ***] And at the end of His earthly ministry He told the inquisitorial High Priest, I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together (John 18:20).

Jesus ubiquitous presence among the Jews made inevitable a severe clash. As a group (praise the Lord, there were many exceptions), the teachers of the Law, rather than fulfilling the Levitical function of teaching the people and showing mercy, had come to despise them for their ignorance. Their collective attitude is made transparent in John 7 where the chief priests and Pharisees are upbraiding the temple guards for being taken in by Jesus' speech: You mean he has deceived you also? Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law-there is a curse on them (47-49). If that mob knew nothing of the Law, it was the fault of the teachers. They were condemning themselves.

Jesus is not only the Prophet, the Priest and the King, He is also the Levite. Luke summarizes his first book as having recorded all that Jesus began to do and to teach (Acts 1:1). Teaching the people and doing mercy-healing, caring for, loving the people-were the twin Levitical functions. By Jesus' day, the leaders had become experts, not in the Law of God, but in caring for themselves (cf. Ezekiel 34). But Jesus would not use His divine power to fulfill His own most basic human needs (Luke 4:3,4). He used it to minister.

Behold the Levite: Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:35-36). When the teachers of the Law saw the crowds, they had contempt for them and starved them. When Jesus saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, taught them, healed them and prayed for them. Simply by doing the right thing, by doing what the leaders should have been doing, Jesus became the object of hatred most intense.

CHRIST'S SYNAGOGUE FOUNDED

The synagogue had become the center of much essential covenant activity. The synagogue was to serve the covenant. The unbelieving leaders felt that the covenant ought to serve the synagogue. Jesus, who is the Covenant incarnate (Isaiah 42:6), was too great a threat to the ecclesiocrats who wanted nothing more than to maintain their power and position. If Jesus was a threat, Jesus would have to go. But first they agreed that if anyone confessed that He was the Messiah, he would be put out of the synagogue (John 9:22).

The importance of this passage in understanding the church as Christ's synagogue cannot be emphasized too strongly. The Jewish leaders who had inherited all the graces of the covenant were being confronted by the very Hope of that covenant. Rather than submit to what so many unlearned people could clearly see-even a blind man (John 9)-they determined to cut off from the covenant any who acknowledged that Jesus was in fact the Messiah.

Shortly before this incident with the blind man, Jesus had made provision for him by establishing the Synagogue of Christ. At Caeserea Philippi, Jesus asked the disciples, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? After reporting various speculations then current as to Christ's identity, Jesus reiterated, But who do you say that I am?

Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:13-19).

It is neither Peter in himself, nor Peter's confession abstractly considered which will constitute the foundation rock of Christ's church, but rather the confessing Peter, the Peter who represents all then present and all who would follow in confessing, as per the personal disclosure by the Father to His elect child, [***Note #11 Cf. 1 Corinthians 12:3 End of Note#11***] the truth that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.

The confession of Jesus as the Messiah became, at one and the same time, the basis for expulsion from the apostate synagogue and the basis of admission into Christ's synagogue. Thus we read in John 9:35: Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when He found him, He said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him? And Jesus said to him, You have now seen Him; in fact, He is the one talking with you. Then the man said, Lord, I believe, and he worshiped Him.

Church growth. Synagogue of Christ growth.

The Lord Jesus our Messiah, before His departure, made clear two things about our two decks: The upper deck would be taken up in Him and raised to heaven. It was of Him the upper deck had testified. Now that He had come, He absorbed all its truth into Himself, took them into the grave, rose as the New Temple, ascended and established this temple forever in heaven. It was to this that the old temple had always directed the eye of faith (John 2:18-22. And cf. all of Hebrews).

Jesus also made clear that the lower deck-decentralized, loosely regulated worship performed in spirit and in truth-would rise to prominence, would not be performed under the shadow of an upper deck, but would live in the light of that system settled in heaven. In short, it would enter into the liberty of maturity. Believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him (John 4:21, 23; see also Malachi 1:11).

The synagogue would overtake the earthly temple, for the true temple would be fixed in heaven. If you want to know where the upper deck is, look up toward the New Jerusalem, where Messiah is seated at the right hand of God. The upper deck went to heaven and the regulative principle which governed worship at it, went to heaven with it. But the wonderfully flexible synagogue had been providentially born and sustained for such a time as this.

Christ's synagogue would be marked by this core of features: A gathering of people who confessed Him as Messiah and Lord, who wanted to worship God in spirit and truth and be fed His Word. So, in the Book of Acts, we find 120 believers (Acts 1:15; the number required for the establishment of a new synagogue) gathered in an upper room (1:13; the place where the first exilic worshipers would gather), earnestly engaged in prayer (1:14; a core activity of the synagogue), and present among them were the requisite ten men (plus one plus one) who were qualified by Christ to look after the new synagogue. All systems go.

TODAY I AM A FOUNTAIN PEN

The upper deck worship of the Mosaic and post-Mosaic period were necessarily restricted to Jerusalem, as we have seen. There was a particular temple, a particular priesthood, a particular calendar, a particular set of prescribed offerings, etc., all localized and confined. When the decentralized synagogues arose, worshipers regarded them as outposts organically related to the temple at Jerusalem. In other words, synagogues were self-consciously the lower deck.

With the temple, the priesthood, the offerings, et al, seen and taken up in Christ, we need a real and living link, an organic connection, between our Savior in heaven and His synagogue on earth. [***Note #12 There was an organic connection between the temple and synagogue during the period of the Second Temple... Jewish Encyclopedia at Synagogue.

End of Note#12***] That not just for the sake of self-conscious connection. We need power. The task of the church, the synagogue of Christ, is far more comprehensive and expansive than the task given to Israel. We are to preach Christ to all the world, baptize nations and teach them to obey everything our Lord has commanded.

In other words, the synagogue of Christ must go beyond the borders of Jerusalem, beyond the borders of Israel, to plant synagogues of Christ (worship/teaching centers) all over the world. [***Note #13 Though we have a long way to go, Christianity is the only religion in the world today with adherents in every country.

End of Note#13***] The church must be able to leave home and reproduce.

A Bar Mitzvah (which literally means son of the commandment) is a ceremony marking an objective, historical change in the life of a young man. It marks his pubescence, the stage of physical development when reproduction becomes possible. [***Note #14 This is euphemistically alluded to in the oft-heard Bar Mitzvah quip, Today I am a fountain pen. End of Note#14***] It also marks the point at which he becomes responsible for obeying the principles and applying the laws he learned in his youth.

The church was not born at Pentecost. It was Bar Mitzvah'd. It was imbued with the Spirit of God sent from the Father and the Son. The church is to bring all its childhood instruction to fruitful realization in its calling. The church is henceforth equipped to fulfill its mandate, to baptize the nations and bring God's Law-Word to bear in every sphere. It may leave home. It can preach the gospel in Jerusalem (to full Jews), then Judea and Samaria (to half-Jews), then to the uttermost parts of the earth (to non-Jews). The church at Pentecost was enabled to reproduce. And it was empowered to train its members to flesh out the Law in life.

The church is organized according to the decentralized synagogue pattern and is commissioned to establish lower deck covenant centers universally. These centers are united in looking to the right hand of the Father for their salvation, united by a common faith and spirit. The core elements which would characterize Christ's synagogues henceforth are present from the beginning: Baptized families gathering to devotedly attend upon the Word of God, to fellowship with one another, to break bread and to pray (Acts 2:42). The shape and form of the synagogue of Christ would, like its predecessor, admit of development and change from time to time as circumstances demanded and the Word warranted. [***Note #15 For example, at first they met daily (Acts 2:46). The community of goods was as needed and never became normative (Acts 2:44). The ministry of just mercy was established out of need in Acts 5. End of Note#15 ***]

The synagogues of Christ, as per Christ and the Apostles, gathered at least weekly for prayer and praise, for blessed fellowship, and for instruction in the Word, under the leadership of men who would divide the Levitical functions: Elders are ministers and rulers who must be apt to teach law and gospel; deacons are ministers of law-based mercy.

When the critical question arose about the standing of converted Gentiles, it was answered decisively in terms of the upper and lower deck. While the temple remained standing, Jewish believers were not required to abandon every vestige of their upper deck tradition (Romans 14, etc.). [***Note #16 Though, in Hebrews, they were sternly and severely warned about going back to it whole hog (heh!), or, as if it had any salvific merit apart from Christ. End of Note#16***] But, the ad hoc council decided, [***Note #17 The Jerusalem conference of churches was called to address a specific concern. It was not a standing commission or presbytery. It has more in common with the multi-denominational Westminster Assembly or Synod of Dordt than the church governments adopted by the sons of those two conventions. For they, like the leaders of Acts 15, convened to articulate the Biblical answers to particular problems, not to form a denomination. This is not to suggest that the synagogue system forbids confessional denominating, mind you, simply that it manifestly does not require it! End of Note#17***] Gentiles could not be forced to adopt the regulative principle of the upper deck, nor be compelled to undergo circumcision, [***Note #18 No doubt accounting for much of the joy with which the Gentiles received the decision! (Acts 15:31)End of Note#18***]

which had preceded it (and had obligated Abraham's flesh descendants to abide by it until Christ). Jewish particularities must give way to the universal. But, like Deuteronomy 12, the Apostles and Elders warned the Gentiles not to worship God in pagan ways. [***Note #19 Pagans worship included sacrificing food to idols, ingesting blood as a means to life (by eating strangled, not blood-drained, animals), and, notoriously, by sexual immorality. To suggest that this was a comprehensive condensed version of the law Gentile must follow is ludicrous. It leaves them free to, among other things, steal and kill. No. The Apostles & Elders agreed: We're not going to strictly regulate what you do (so long as the core elements of Christian synagogue worship are there), but we will tell you what you mustn't do in worshiping God in Christ. End of Note#19***]

Let's Get Together

What has been said in this essay is by no means intended to be considered as the last word. Certainly much more needs to be added, and the writer herewith solicits correction. The concern has simply been to emphasize the freedom and elasticity of ecclesiastical-form we have been given by our Master and Head. The genius and strength of the synagogue system has been widely recognized as residing in its flexibility, its plasticity. The core is strong, absolutely essential: the Word of God complete. The sacraments are simple, necessarily so, for they must be decentrally administered everywhere in the world.

Hence, there is a uniform recognition throughout the New Testament that the local church is the church. Compare it to the family. The institution of the family is intangible. Families, however, can be found. And just as familyhood comes from God (Ephesians 3:14-15) and is realized in households, so also the church is discovered, for good or ill, in local churches. The synagogue of Christ has no existence apart from local expressions, from Eden on. All local churches will answer to Christ. In the meantime, all local churches, especially those in the same communities, ought to cooperate with other local churches as much as they can (not as little as they can), without compromising their confession of and witness to the truth.

It is interesting to note that synagogues only recently began to form federations. Jewish scholars attribute this to the influence of Protestant denominations. However, denominationalism, whatever use it may have been to the synagogues of Christ for the past 400 years, is functionally dead. We are now at a time in history when we should realize that the content of what we confess must take precedence over the forms in which it is presented. It is not suggested that these are separable matters, only that each has its own priority. The insistence upon an outmoded and anachronistic allegiance to denominationalism-as opposed to free and particular confessional association, church with church and church-has led, and continues to lead with alarming frequency, to Church A being formally aligned with Church B while Church B espouses manifest heresies contrary to Church A's confession. But because they are in the same denomination Church A not only remains aligned, but helps further the spread of the errors.

Most everyone will agree that a Bible-believing Presbyterian from the PCUSA, e.g., has more in common with a fundamentalist from the GARB, than he does with most of the leaders in his own denomination. Today, particular churches may be (in the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith), more or less pure, but denominations are, nearly uniformly, very mixed-and mixed-up-bags. As a rule, they are sustained not to serve the covenant, but themselves. Like the church leaders in Jesus' time, they put form at the fore and function on a back burner. Their instruction often reveals a dangerous despite for God's people, being offered, not so much to nourish the sheep as to be heard by and to impress themselves and their peers. Someone once quipped that institutions are dedicated to destroy the principles for which they are founded. How tragically true of denominations at the end of the 20th century!

The key to ecclesiastical progress in our day lies in recapturing the importance of the church's function in the world. To do this we must go back, but not to Geneva (that's not far back enough), and certainly not to Rome (for Rome is rooted, futilely and fatally, in the upper deck). We must go back to Eden and from there follow the path on through to the end of Scripture. The upper deck led us to Christ and has gone into heaven with Him. Let us humbly trace the lower deck and see how God intended it to function.

The New Testament synagogue model is designed to allow us to concentrate on what we must believe and what we must do. What's missing from the church today is certainly not form, but rather Biblical Law and, consequently, Biblical Love. The church is to serve the covenant and not vice versa. Let us stand together before our God and His Word and ask what He would have us do and teach. Thus we will continue that work begun by our Messiah, thus we will not be sidetracked, but will rather fulfill His purposes in establishing the synagogue of Christ. Amen.  

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