The traditional and majority view of Christendom is that the Church, the Body of Christ, began on Pentecost.
Problems for the Traditional View
Three major problems exist for the traditional view.
The logical argument for rejecting the traditional view that the Church began on Pentecost is the following:
🔹Paul stated the Church, the Body of Christ, was a secret. This means that the Church as the Body of Christ was an unknown entity. Paul declared this long after Pentecost. Nothing from the record at Pentecost indicates the Twelve knew anything about the Body of Christ. Peter and the other disciples knew only about the coming earthly kingdom of God. They knew nothing of Jew and Gentile becoming equal in the “body of Christ” seated in the heavens with heavenly citizenship (Ephesians 1.3; Philippians 3.20; Colossians 1.5).
🔹Therefore, it is impossible for the Body of Christ to have begun at Pentecost.
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Three major problems exist for the traditional view.
- The first is God explicitly stated through the apostle Paul that the Church, the Body of Christ, was a “secret,” (μυστήριον). This presents a serious problem for the traditional view because Paul made this declaration long after Pentecost.
- The second problem confirms the first point. No Biblical evidence exists to support the view that anyone at Pentecost recognized that the Church, i.e., the Body of Christ, had come into existence. On the contrary, the Scriptural evidence indicates at Pentecost the Twelve knew nothing about the Body of Christ. Peter only addressed Jews. But Paul declared the Church was that organism in which Jew and Gentile are equal. Peter obviously did not know this else he would have addressed Gentiles. Furthermore, only Paul wrote about the Body of Christ (Romans 12.5; 1 Corinthians 10.16, 17, 12.12, 13, 18, 25, 27; Ephesians 1.23, 2.16, 3.6, 4.4, 12, 16, 5.30; Colossians 1.18, 2.17, 19, 3.15). Such terminology is absent from the Gospels and the letters of Peter, James, John, Jude.
- The third is, Peter and the Eleven were looking for the fulfillment of prophecy, i.e., the kingdom of God on earth which God had revealed through the prophets, not the beginning of a new “Church” age. The Old Testament contains not a word about the Church, the body of Christ. The prophets, John, and Jesus had revealed nothing of the fact that Jew and Gentile would be equal in Christ in a Body. On the contrary, Peter quoted Joel and expected the “sun to be turned into darkness and the moon into blood” (Acts 2.15-21). Peter expected the Lord to come in judgment and to establish His kingdom.
The logical argument for rejecting the traditional view that the Church began on Pentecost is the following:
🔹Paul stated the Church, the Body of Christ, was a secret. This means that the Church as the Body of Christ was an unknown entity. Paul declared this long after Pentecost. Nothing from the record at Pentecost indicates the Twelve knew anything about the Body of Christ. Peter and the other disciples knew only about the coming earthly kingdom of God. They knew nothing of Jew and Gentile becoming equal in the “body of Christ” seated in the heavens with heavenly citizenship (Ephesians 1.3; Philippians 3.20; Colossians 1.5).
🔹Therefore, it is impossible for the Body of Christ to have begun at Pentecost.
(More)