THE CHURCH IN OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES

THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS WROTE OF THE CHURCH

The reason we must address this issue of the Old Testament Prophecies concerning the Church is that Dispensationalism wants to have us deny that the Old Testament Prophets ever spoke concerning the Church.
Dispensationalists say that the Church was "completely unknown" to the Old Testament Prophets? Yes, they do. They state categorically that the Old Testament Prophets were only speaking to the Jewish people of the "Millennium". Not the Church.[1]

STEPHENS' TESTIMONY

This is he, that was in the Church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: Acts 7:38

Here Stephen says that "the Church in the wilderness" existed in the time of Moses. Stephen is saying that the New Testament Church is the same Church that existed in the Old Testament and that the Prophets foretold.

THE APOSTLE YAKOV (JAMES) AT THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

In Acts Chapter 15, the Jerusalem Council was held to decide what to do about the Gentiles. Paul and Barnabus were there as well as Peter, John and all the Apostles. All listened to Paul and Barnabus, but we are not told their testimony. Then James renders the Decision. James uses Peters' testimony, "Symeon hath declared how G-d at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a People for His Name". James does not mention Pauls' testimony or that Paul was to exclusively speak for the Gentiles.
James also appealed to "the prophets". He relates Peters' vision at Caesarea to what the Prophets foretold would happen. Seeing that James quotes from "the prophets" as proof of what G-d was doing with reference to the Church itself, the Dispensational argument that "the Prophets never Prophesied of the Church", as Dr. Allis says, "cannot be maintained".
Dispensationalists deny this altogether, based on Scofields' rendering.[2]
Here is the passage from the prophets.

After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: Acts 15:16

The Apostle James is quoting here from Amos 9:11 in the Old Testament.[3] He is describing the Unique Event of the Church using this Prophecy to refer to the Resurrection of Messiah Yeshua. James indicates that the Prophet Amos was also Prophesying of the New Testament Church itself, which is "The Body of Christ".

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Translations:

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FOOTNOTES

[1]Further, they state that both John the Baptist and Yeshua were preaching only to the Jewish people in order to offer them their same "Millennium".
This is not generally revealed to new students of Dispensationalism; that they have "two gospels", one to the Jewish people, called "The Gospel of the Kingdom" (which they teach was preached by John the Baptist and Yeshua) and the other, "the gospel of the Grace of God" which they say Paul preached and is for their "Church Age" only.
[2]Scofield said, "Dispensationally, this is the most important passage in the N.T". They use it often to support their "parenthesis church" doctrine. He interprets the passage thus:
He says this passage, "gives the divine purpose for this age and the beginning of the next". He tries to shift the Prophecy wholly to a "future age": their "Millennium", de3nying that the passage is referring absolutely to the then-revealed New Testament Church. Here is the part he used and how he did it.
""'After this [viz: the outcalling] I will return.'"
Placing the emphasis entirely on "return", which to them represents the still future event, unrelated to the Church! In other words, he takes James' quote from Amos and [inserts] his own words in the Bible itself to say that Amos was reallt prophesying, not about the Church, but instead, the "future age"; their "Millennium"!
They mean to tell us then that the entire reason for the calling of the Jerusalem Council, which was to decide concerning the Gentiles in the Church itself, was not being spoken of by James at all here when he gave his Decision? Instead James was using Amos to assure all the Dispensational "Millennium" was coming as a "future age"?
So they would have us believe. The quote by James from Amos is wholly applied to the future and is not at all related to the very point James is discussing!?! This is the premises of accepted Dispensationalist thinking.
The actual teaching of the Christian Church however, is very different. This passage speaks directly to the ingathering of the Gentiles as a "People for His Name" and is founded upon "the apostles and prophets"
And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; Ephesians 2:20
His Church establishes the world-wide Sovereignty and Reign of Jesus Christ as the son of David, as "Davids' greater Son", as per Matthew 28:18.
Yeshua did completely Fulfill this passage in Amos already of course, because He did "Return" after the Ascension and Communed with the Apostles and was seen of many others as well.
[3] In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: Amos 9:11
Here in Acts 15, the Apostle follows the Greek Septuagint (LXX) version, and not the Hebrew version.
The Greek Septuagint has the word ekklesia (The very same word the Greek New Testament uses for "Church") for "congregation" in many passages in the Book of Deuteronomy, but Scofield, after all, was never known to have absorbed either Greek or Hebrew

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CREDITS

Allis, Dr. Oswald T. Prophecy and the Church. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. 1945.
Scofield, C. I. The Scofield Reference Bible. 1909. Revised 1917. Revised again, 1967.
The Westminister Confession of Faith. 1646.

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