When Did the Church Begin?

In today’s “A La Carte” Tim Challies linked to an article arguing against locating the beginning of the church at Pentecost. The article contains a series of misunderstandings. First, it links this position to dispensationalism. Dispensationalists do hold this position, but so, for instance, do many Baptists who are not dispensationalists. Second, while the article grants that “Israel was not identical to the New Covenant church in every respect,” it maintains that “the difference in form did not create a different way of salvation.” However, no one who holds that the church began at Pentecost believes that there are different ways of salvation for Old Testament believers and New Testament believers. He asks, “Did the Old Testament saints lack saving union with Christ?” None of those who believe the church began at Pentecost would answer in the affirmative. Third, the article presupposes that dispensationalists believe that national Israel and the multinational church are “two covenant peoples with separate destinies.” But this view has long been abandoned by dispensationalists.

For a helpful, positive, discussion of the relationship between Israel and the church, see Craig Blaising’s “Progressive Dispensationalism as Kingdom Theology.”