THE CHURCH IS THE PEOPLE OF GOD

When we consider the term Black Church we must seek to understand not only what it means but also which term takes precedence. Is it the Black Church or is of the Black Church? In other words, which is the defining category? Is “Black” the defining characteristic of the church? Or, is "Church" the premier entity of which Black is a particular kind? These are important preliminary considerations when we engage in profitable study of such an encompassing subject.

Constraints of time, space and means urge me to answer the above questions immediately and unequivocally: in the construct, the Black Church, the term church is of paramount importance. It is a biblical term with a wide variety of applications but it is primarily used to indicate God's (Own) people, with the dominant notion of their assembly in His Presence. This we will develop in later segments but now it is sufficient to supply the following proofs that the church is an institution divinely constituted as God’s Own people:

It Is God’s Chosen Or Elect People
Dt 4:37: And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power,

10:15: Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.

Rom 8:33: Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

1 Pe 2:10: Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

God Chose Her From Among All The Nations Of The World
Amos 3:2: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

cf.
Ex 19:5: Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine;

He Has Marked Them Out For Himself
Ps 4:3: But know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself; ..

… Even Before The Creation Of The World To Live Holy Lives
Eph 1:4: even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

It Is His Unique, Exclusive, Personal Possession
Ex 19:5-6: Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel."

Dt 14:2 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

1 Pe 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, ..


It Is Chosen By God Through A Condescending, Voluntary Divine Act With No Meritorious Qualities Inhering In The Object Of His Affection
Dt 7:7-9: It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

1 Cor 1:26-29: For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.


God Exalts Her Above All Nations
Dt 26:18-19: And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised."

As God's People They Are Zealous To Do Good Works
Tit 2:14: who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

God Writes His Law On Heir Hearts
Heb 8:10: For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Cf. Jer 31:31-34

As God’s Personal Possession, They Are To Publish Praises Of His Divine Saving, Electing Mercies Toward Them To All World
1 Pe 2:9-10: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

They Will Enjoy Eternal, Eschatological Bliss In His Presence
Rev 21:3: And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.


To those who say how can these texts be said to refer to the church when the word itself is not included among them, I respond that you are precisely correct. Scripture does not merely give us words or terms; the Holy Spirit also speaks to us from the pages of Holy Writ in concepts and thoughts which can be systematically identified and traced throughout redemptive history. Although the word church makes its first biblical, chronological appearance in Mt 16:18, the reality of the church as a divinely instituted and constituted, historical, biblical-theological entity, occurs in the very early and formative years of recorded redemptive history. Dispensationalist claims to the law of first reference--- “the first reference to any doctrine in Scripture usually contains the embryonic truth of its development.” That is, God introduces a subject in microscopic form and then later enlarges it. [Elmer Towns, Theology For Today (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1989), p. 609], --- in support of their view that the church is a New Testament doctrine making its first canonical appearance in Mt 16, betray a static approach to the study of Scripture and a grave theological anemia in fathoming “.. the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things,” Eph 3:9. These claims destroy the thematic and structural unity of Scripture and proffer a false, major and rigid dichotomy between the old and new covenants; law and grace; Israel and the church, while admitting some degree of unity. Contrarily, the Reformed view, to which I subscribe, maintains the essential unity between these categories while acknowledging the discontinuities as necessarily arising from the progressive development of the history of redemption. Such unity is achieved by the ubiquitous Immanuel Principle, "I will be Your God and you will be My people," God's covenant promise and commitment to bind Himself by His hesed, His steadfast love, to those He sovereignly elects out of the mass of fallen humanity.

Summary: The church is God’s elect, assembled people of all ages, in both the old and new covenant.

Note: Each of the segments in this series is integrally and theologically linked to its forerunner. I therefore ask that you keep this in mind and do not disjoin them should you determine to read them in toto.

Next article: The implications for the Black Church as God’s Own people.