28.The General Assembly of the Church

The General Assembly of the Church of the first-born inHeb 12:22f In Heb 12:22f, God tells His New Testament Church that she had "come unto Mount Zion, and unto the City of the living God, [namely] the heavenly Jerusalem, and...to the General Assembly and Church of the first-born..., and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, speaking better things than [that of] Abel" the

Presbuteros.

Says Dr. Owen (XXIII:328-38): "We have here a blessed, yea, a glorious description of the Catholic Church [alias the Church Universal], as the nature and communion of it are revealed under the Gospel.... The Catholic Church is distributed into two parts, namely that which is militant and that which is triumphant; they are both comprehended in this description....

"For the first expressions...’Mount Sion, the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem’ do principally respect that part of the Church which is militant.... The foundation of this catholic communion or communion of the Catholic Church comprising all that is holy and dedicated unto God...is laid [down] in the recapitulation of all things in and by Jesus Christ. Eph 1:10, ’All things are gathered into one Head in Him’...Which is the sole foundation of their mutual communion.... We have here an As-soc-iation."

Now precisely from "Gal. iv.25-26...it is apparent that by ’Mount Sion’ and ’the heavenly Jerusalem’ the same state of the Church [Militant] is intended.... The Apostle calls the state of believers under the New Testament by the name of Sion.... All pleas about church order, power, rights and privileges, are useless where men are not interested in this Sion state.... This was the City of God.

"The state of the Church under the New Testament is so.... Therein, He disposeth all his children into a spiritual soc-iety.... Their politeuma or ’city conversation’ is in heaven, Php 3:20.... This is the second privilege of the Gospel state, wherein all the remaining promises of the Old Testament are transferred and made over to believers.... There is a spiritual order and beauty in the communion of the Catholic Church, such as becomes [or behooves] the City of the Living God....

"Another instance of the glory of this state, is that therein believers come to ’the General Assembly and Church of the first-born’.... The words here used, Paneeguris and Ekkleesia, are borrowed from the customs of those cities whose government was democratical....

"Paneeguris was the solemn Assembly.... Hence is the word used for any great General Assembly.... Ekleesia was a ’Meeting of the Citizens’ to determine of things and affairs which had had a previous deliberation in the Senate. Hence it is applied to signify that which we call ’the Church’ or Qaahaal....

"Herein, there may be an allusion unto the Assemblies of such cities. But I rather think the Apostle hath respect unto the Great Assembly of all the [mature] males of the Church of the Old Testament. This was a divine institution to be observed three times a year....

Exo 30:23; Deu 16:16.... The Assembly of them was called ’the Great Congregation.’

Psa 22:25; Psa 25:18; Psa 110:9-10.... It may be, regard is had unto the General Assembly of the whole people at Sinai in receiving of the Law." Note there that the People of the Lord received that Law of God precisely through their graded Courts of Elders. Exo 18:12-26; Exo 19:1-7f; Exo 20:1f; Exo 21:22f; Exo 24:4-9f.