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The composition of the people of God, is a definite place where some critical thinking and reflection are surely needed by today’s Messianic people. Ecclesiology is not an area of theology which enough adequately understand the importance of. Yet, given the end-time or eschatological significance of today’s Messianic movement, ecclesiology is something many need a better handle on.
For today’s Messianic movement, ecclesiology affects how Jewish and non-Jewish Believers read the Bible, and the instructions which God wants them to follow. Ecclesiology undeniably affects the unity of Jewish Believers and Believers from the nations as one in the Body of Messiah.
Is the ekklēsia an actual separate entity known as “the Church”? Or, is ekklēsia no different than the assembly of Israel itself—which takes Bible readers back to the mixed multitude of physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the welcomed persons from the nations, who received His Ten Words and Instruction at the base of Mount Sinai (cf. Exodus 12:38)? Did Yeshua the Messiah come to found a separate group of elect called “the Church,” or did He come to rebuild and restore His Father’s assembly of righteous ones (cf. Matthew 16:18; Jeremiah 33:7, LXX), restoring the Kingdom to Israel (cf. Acts 1:6)?
The basic choices of ecclesiology today’s Messianic people have are rather striking: either God (1) has two groups of elect, or sub-peoples: Israel and “the Church”; or God (2) recognizes all as a part of an enlarged Kingdom realm of Israel. How are we to approach non-Jewish Believers in the Messianic movement, and things like the Commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:11-13), the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16), or being grafted-in (Romans 11:16-18)? There is much which we need to be considering from the text of Scripture, as we evaluate what our future beholds.
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