How did the community of believers first come about? In order to understand this more fully, we need to look back at the record of God’s dealing with his people under the Old Covenant and the promises given to them, so that we can discover the basic principles that are relevant for all time.
Shared Leadership
In the early days of the wanderings of the Israelites through the wilderness after their release from slavery, Moses was exercising leadership almost single-handedly. He carried responsibility not only for the actual escape from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea and the provision of food and water for the tribes, but also for the spiritual teaching and the social and moral regulations of family and community life.
Decisions and guidance on all these things were given to him through his personal relationship with God, but Moses had sole responsibility both for hearing from God and for passing on the teaching to the people, as well as for seeing that God’s instructions were carried out. Moses even acted as Commander-in-Chief of the army (Ex 17:8-16), even though this required team co-operation.
The burden of this wide-ranging responsibility pressed very heavily upon him and the strain was becoming apparent in Moses’ life. At this point, his father-in-law Jethro intervened and offered him sound advice which led to the establishing of the principle of shared leadership - one of the basic characteristics of successful churches.
According to the account in Exodus 18, Jethro rebuked Moses, saying “What you are doing is not good…The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone”. Jethro perceived that Moses ought to concentrate on fulfilling his essential role and appoint others to share responsibilities that were preventing him from doing this. This was not simply delegation - it was shared leadership that also had a clear role definition. Moses was advised to select capable men who could act as judges for the people in handling simple cases, although the difficult cases were still to be brought to Moses. Jethro said “That will make your load lighter because they will share it with you” (Ex 18:22).
Shared leadership is one of the basic characteristics of successful churches
The Urgent and the Essential
One of the underlying principles that this account of shared leadership illustrates is the importance of discerning what God wants for the whole community of his people and for each one’s place and responsibility within it. Then the whole body becomes united, each individual is fulfilled and the whole community moves forward under God’s leadership in the way that he directs. We shall note later the importance of discovering one’s spiritual gifting, which is essential for a community of believers to operate effectively.
Jethro discerned that his son-in-law’s primary task was “to be the people’s representative before God”. Once Moses was released from the treadmill of the day-to-day administration of the tribes he was free to carry out his essential task. He was able to spend more time in the presence of God, to receive the teaching (Ex 19) that provided the foundation for the reaffirmation of the covenant (Ex 24) and the establishing of a right relationship between the newly emerging nation of Israel and their God. Before this could happen, Moses had to be freed from the tyranny of the merely urgent to be able to concentrate upon the essential.
Spiritual Leadership
At first this sharing of leadership was confined to meeting the practical and physical needs of the people. Later in his life Moses extended the principle of shared leadership to include spiritual matters. This led to him perceiving an important principle: that the ultimate objective was for each one to have a personal relationship with God whereby the Spirit of God could communicate with them directly.
The account in Numbers 11:16-29 shows Moses receiving an instruction from God to bring together 70 of Israel’s leading elders who could share with him the responsibilities of spiritual leadership. He was told to bring them to the Tent of Meeting and God would speak to him there. “I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone” (v17).
“When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied” (v25), but two of the elders, Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. “Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp” (v26). Joshua protested about this, obviously believing that prophecy should only be heard within the Tent of Meeting which was properly consecrated for worship, but Moses in his greater wisdom longed to see all the people filled with the Spirit of the Lord and able to prophesy. “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!” (v29).
Moses perceived that the ultimate objective was for each person to have a personal relationship with God whereby the Spirit of God could communicate with them directly
New Covenant
Moses’ wish could not be fulfilled until the covenant was established on a new basis. Jeremiah perceived what God would one day establish with his people:
The time is coming declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers…because they broke my covenant…I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbour; or a man his brother; saying, ‘Know the Lord’, because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” (Jer 31:31-34)
Promise and Prophecy
The spiritual principle underlying this New Covenant was stated in the form of a promise in Isaiah 44:3: “I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.” The promise that God would pour out his Spirit in blessing on the descendants of the survivors of the exile is the new thing which is referred to in the previous chapter, with the instruction “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isa 43:18-19).
This promise became a prophecy through the ministry of Joel, to whom God said “I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days” (Joel 2:28-29).
Prophecy Fulfilled
On the Day of Pentecost, Peter, addressing the crowd in Jerusalem, quoted this prophecy from Joel to account for the behaviour of the disciples following their experience in the Upper Room as they spilled out into the city streets:
In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Acts 2:17-21)
The force of his declaration is that the time of fulfilment had begun; the Messianic Age had dawned.
Although Peter quoted the whole of Joel’s prophecy, he was not implying its total fulfilment at that time, since there is no evidence that the sun was darkened or the moon was turned to blood on that day. Peter’s major purpose was clearly to declare that the Spirit had now been poured out upon all the believers - that is, those who had entered into a New Covenant relationship with God through the Lord Jesus. The Spirit was given to young and old, men and women, rich and poor, regardless of worldly status.
Peter’s teaching on the Day of Pentecost showed that the events of that day were a beginning. It was the start of a new age inaugurated by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the first believers who were now formed into a new community - a body of believers empowered by the Spirit of God and incorporated into Christ.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the first believers inaugurated a new age and formed them into a new community - a body empowered by the Spirit and incorporated into Christ
Direct Access
As the early Church grew and began to recognise more fully the doctrine on which it had been established, all that Jesus had taught along with the fulfilment of many prophecies began to fall into place. The writer to the Hebrews repeats Jeremiah’s prophecy (Heb 8), showing how it is fulfilled perfectly in Jesus. Jesus is the only High Priest we need - a permanent priest in the order of Melchizedek from the beginning of time and not a transitory, traditional, earthly appointment like the descendants of Levi.
Melchizedek was a priest “not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the power of an indestructible life” (Heb 7:16). In the same way, Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins did not have to be repeated every day, as under the Old Covenant, but was once for all, enabling us to enter into his salvation. We now have direct access to the Father. Jesus emphasises this accessibility in his teaching that “In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God” (John 16:26-27).
With this promise in his name, with his power and in his Spirit, the New Covenant is established and enables us to be the whole Body of Christ today, able to minister to each other and to the world.
Summary
The covenant established through Moses was a covenant with the whole nation of Israel and stood in contrast to the New Covenant established through the Lord Jesus Christ between God and believers.
The first covenant was one into which people entered by right of natural birth and the second covenant through spiritual rebirth. There are many other differences, but three have particular relevance for our consideration of the development of a community of believers:
- Under the Old Covenant, the Spirit of God rested upon individual leaders such as judges, kings and prophets, while under the New Covenant the Spirit came upon all believers.
- Under the Old Covenant, the priests and prophets acted as mediators between God and men, while under the New Covenant only one mediator was recognised – Jesus Christ – through whom all believers have direct access to the Father.
- Under the Old Covenant, religious activities such as worship and prophecy were regarded as only being appropriate in specially consecrated places, while under the New Covenant the presence of God could be experienced anywhere - on the road, in the home, on the rooftop, in a hall, in prison - and at any time.
Questions
- This article traces the progressive revelation of God’s intention to pour out his Spirit on all believers. Why was this revelation given in stages and why was it not fulfilled until after the ministry of Jesus?
- Does the Spirit of God still come upon individuals today as it did upon Moses, the prophets and the leaders of Israel?
- Discuss the differences between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant as they relate to the development of biblical community, as seen in the early Church.
- What were the implications for the New Testament Church of Peter’s declaration that the prophecy of Joel was beginning to be fulfilled at Pentecost?
This article is part of a series. Click here to read previous instalments.
