When did the church begin / start?

To gather up a little the points which have been touched upon: Individual saints, or believers, there have always been; but they were not incorporated into one in Old Testament times. God had besides an earthly people, a nation, which He governed by His laws, and in the midst of which many of those individual saints were found, whose names are recorded in the Word. The nation itself, however, that is, the mass of it, always consisted of mere natural unregenerate persons. Favoured of God above all other nations, their very privileges became the means of demonstrating their wickedness; and not theirs only, but also the hopeless evil of man's nature, placed under any possible circumstances of religious culture and privilege. When, last of all, God sent His Son, they took advantage of His condescension and His grace to put Him to death. This, followed up by their rejection of God's grace as proclaimed by the Holy Ghost in the ministry of the apostles, terminated for the present all hopes of their national blessing. They were left to the fearful judgments which soon after overtook them, and under which they still remain. Grace, we know, and divine power, will restore them as a nation in the end. But for the present they are left under judgment. What is it fills up the interval? THE CHURCH. When did it commence? Not with the incarnation — not even with the personal ministry — of our Lord. He came seeking fruit of Israel. Alas, there was none to be found! But during His patient ministry of grace in the midst of Israel, there was gathered around Him, as we have seen, a little band of disciples. These knew, by revelation of the Father to their hearts, that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. They were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Still they were not the Church. They were the materials of which the Church was afterwards to be in the first instance composed; but they were not as yet the Church. For the formation of the Church two things were needed — the death of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Ghost. Caiaphas, being high priest, in using certain words with quite a different meaning in his own mind, unwittingly prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation of the Jews; "and not for that nation only," adds the Holy Ghost by the evangelist, "but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." (John 11:52.) The death of Christ was necessary to this, both in the counsels of God, and in the actual putting away of sin. Then, further, the power by which alone this gathering could be accomplished was the power of the Holy Ghost; and He, the Comforter, could not come till Jesus was glorified — not risen merely, but glorified. Hence, the very first mention we have of the Church historically, i.e., as actually existing, is in Acts 2, when Christ had been glorified, and the Holy Ghost had come down. Then the Church was formed. True that for awhile it consisted entirely of Jews, while a special testimony to the Jews was being carried on at Jerusalem. This being rejected, Peter was sent to the Gentiles; the apostle of the Gentiles was called; believing Gentiles were incorporated with the Jews who had already believed; and the full, heavenly portion and unity and glory of the Church, as one with Christ by the Holy Ghost, was revealed to Paul, and made known in his ministry and epistles. The Church existed from the day of Pentecost; but the chosen vessel for its full instruction as to the mind of God respecting it was Paul; and his conversion did not take place till after the definite rejection by Jerusalem of the last lingerings of divine mercy, in the testimony of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven.

It was not till after the death and resurrection of Jesus that the Church began. In the purpose of God, as we shall see, it existed before all worlds. But as to its actual existence on earth, the Church was formed by the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost. Those who till then had been individual believers, disciples of Christ, were by the descent of the Holy Ghost incorporated into one body; and that body, which has existed ever since, is the Church of God. Christ glorified is the Head of this body. All true believers in Christ are its members. The Holy Ghost unites the members to the Head, and to each other. He dwells in the body, moreover, supplying life, strength, guidance, and blessing from the Head to the whole; His own presence constituting its sole power of growth, unity, testimony, and rule. Such is the Scriptural idea of the Church. But to understand what the New Testament teaches us concerning it, it is necessary that we consider certain previous dealings of God with mankind.

The Church began at Pentecost with Jewish believers and later Gentiles were added to it (Acts 10), both being reconciled unto God in one body by the cross and the twain made one new man (Eph. 2:14-16). True, this was not all revealed at once and the distinctive truths of the Church were only brought out later by Paul, the special apostle to the Church, in his prison Epistles, but the Church of the living God began at Pentecost just the same. The book of Acts is a transition period from Judaism into the liberty and fulness of Christianity. These Jewish believers could not be taken all at once from Judaism into the full teaching of the Church, so these great and wonderful truths of the Church were gradually revealed and fully brought out at the proper time during Paul's imprisonment.

These faithful believers of the Lord's time existed as individual followers of Christ and became the nucleus of the Church at its formation on the day of Pentecost. On that day they were baptized by the descended Spirit into the body of Christ and were thereby joined to their glorified Savior on high (I Cor. 12:13). Then they no longer existed as individual believers, but as a corporate body, the Body of Christ, and members one of another, linked together by the Spirit of God which now indwelt them. This was the beginning of the Church of the living God.

The third great fact is illustrated by the birth of Rebekah. This is Acts 2, the birthday of the Church, the Church called into life, although Rebekah does not yet know her position as Isaac's wife nor her relationship with Isaac. The church began at Pentecost, but the writings of Paul and John were yet to be written which showed to the church what its position is and what their relationships are respectively. This is very important for the understanding of the book of Acts.

a. Church began at Pentecost (Acts 2:47; future in Matt. 16:18).

The church started on the day of Pentecost, 50 days after the Lord’s resurrection, before 9 am (Acts 2, esp. v.15).

The church of God, or more correctly the assembly of God, began when Christ gave the Spirit at Pentecost to His own disciples. These first composed the assembly. “The number of names together were about an hundred and twenty” (Acts 1:15). With one accord they were all together in one place, when the Spirit came both upon them and within them.

Ans.—We suppose you are well acquainted with the teaching of Scripture as to the origin of the New Testament Church, which is the Church of God, the Body of Christ. It began on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came from heaven (Acts 2). By the Spirit all who were then believers in the Lord Jesus were “baptized (or formed) into one body” (1 Cor.12:13). Believers without exception since that time have been added to this same Body by the same Spirit, who is to continue here until the Lord comes and translates the Church to heaven.

In concluding our first chapter on What Is the Church of the Living God, let us restate some of the leading thoughts which have been before us in answer to our chapter's question. We have seen from God's Word that the Church did not begin until Pentecost and that it is composed of born-again believers who have been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ and joined by Him to His Church, of which He is the head in heaven. They are a company of called out ones, separated from the world, and ever seen by God as one body throughout the world in spite of all the divisions that exist among them.