THE CHURCH’S ORIGIN, FOUNDATION, AND MISSION

OBJECTIVES:
• Discuss the emergence of the Church in the Old Testament
• Identify the different prefigurations of the Church in the Old Testament and its meaning.

"The eternal Father, in accordance with the utterly gratuitous and mysterious design of his wisdom
and goodness, created the whole universe and chose to raise up men to share in his own divine
life,” to which he calls all men in his Son.

A PLAN BORN IN THE FATHER’S HEART:

The Church is “God's Family”, redeemed and reunited in Jesus Christ: the Church is God's
People. She is “a plan born in the Father's Heart”.

The Church was prepared in marvelous fashion in the history of the people of Israel.

The Church - foreshadowed from the world's beginning

THE CHURCH IS GOD'S PEOPLE REDEEMED AND RECONCILED TO HIM:

She was prepared since the moment when original sin broke the union between mankind and
God and dispersed His children far away from Him. God immediately started preparing a
Covenant with mankind: it started with Noah, went on with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the
Prophets, and so on, until the establishment of the New and Eternal Covenant in Jesus Christ.

The Church - prepared for in the Old Covenant

In the call of Abraham, we see God’s great plan at work: to gather together all mankind to
be his family. Where one man fell to the ruin of all, one man is to become a blessing for all: “The
people descended from Abraham would be the trustees of the promise made to the patriarchs,
the chosen people, called to prepare for that day when God would gather all his children into the
unity of the Church.
 No infidelity on the part of Israel, no sin of the people, not even the misjudgment and
rejection of Jesus the Messiah, can ever destroy God’s fidelity to “Abraham and his posterity
forever”.

“You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex 19:6). Israel is above all
an “assembly of people” before God, a qahal-the very reality that the Septuagint translates
as ekklesia, Church.
They are the seed of Abraham, to this very day, but these descendants exist only because
God himself gave them to Abraham, and because Abraham believed.

SUMMARY OF SALVATION
COVENANT MEDIATOR COVENANT SIGN COVENANT FORM
Adam Marriage Couple
Noah Rainbow Family
Abraham Circumcision Tribe
Moses Decalogue Nation
David Throne Kingdom