Israel was set apart from the world foremost by the promise of God’s presence, but also by the covenant promises and commands God gave to Israel. But perhaps most significantly, God enshrined His promise to dwell in the midst of His people by granting them a temple in which His presence would spiritually dwell. This was the capstone of Israel’s identity in the world. God brought them out of Egypt, but far more importantly, God kept His promise to dwell in the midst of His people, to bless them, to guide them, to meet with them, and to receive their worship.

What does God love most in the world? When He looks down at the snow-topped mountains that He has made, they are breathtaking and beautiful, seemingly reaching up to heaven itself. Likewise, when He looks down on the ocean that He has made, it is sometimes tranquil and sometimes tempestuous, yet always teeming with life, mirroring back to God His creative glory. Even man retains a peculiar privilege, in that man alone is said to bear the image of its Creator with knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and dominion over the other creatures. But of all these things, it is the church that God loves the most in this world.

The Bible calls the church “the body of Christ” that He nourishes and cares for as He does Himself (Eph. 5). The church is His glorious temple, in which He is pleased to dwell (Rev. 21:3). It is His fullness, in the sense that the Father in heaven promised Jesus a great reward that includes His church (Col. 1:18–20). The church is also His adopted family whom He loves and protects (Gal. 4:5). Jesus came into the world not only in obedience to the Father’s will, fulfilling the mission the Father sent Him to accomplish (John 17:4); He also came into the world because of His great love for His church. Like a husband come to rescue his bride, a king come to save his people, or a shepherd come to rescue his sheep, Jesus came into the world because of His great love for His church. There is nothing in all this world that Jesus loves more than His church.

But what is the church, and when did it begin? Though the flower of the church truly blossoms in the New Testament, its seed begins to sprout noticeably in the soil of the Old Testament. In a certain sense, Adam and Eve were the first members of the church—at least, the church “under age” (Westminster Confession of Faith 19.3). When sin entered the world, God implemented His plan to save a people for Himself, a people who would be saved from sin and its wages—death.

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