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 TOPIC 12.3
NAMES AND IMAGES OF THE CHURCH

The Church as the “People of God”

 NAMES AND IMAGES
OF THE CHURCH

I will be your God, God prepares The Church,

you will be my people his people the New People of God

The Church, All share The universal call to “be Church”

a “Messianic People” in the triple office of Jesus & “do Church”: holiness & apostolate
 “I will be your God,
you will be my people.”
God’s eternal plan: to make man share divine life.
Eph 1: 3ff.

Anyone who fears God and does what is right

has always been acceptable to Him

◦ but God wants to save and make man holy,

not in isolation from others,

◦ but by making them into a people who might belong to Him,

acknowledging Him in truth
and serving Him in holiness.

◦ with characteristics that clearly distinguish it

from all other religious, ethnic, political,
or cultural groups found in history
 God prepares
his people
God forms a people by intervening in history with saving deeds
and saving words

◦ the Chosen People from the 12 tribes of Israel descended from

Abraham (c. 2000 B.C.)

◦ the People of the Covenant forged with Moses

at Mt. Sinai (c. 13th C. B.C.)

◦ and gradually instructed by divinely-appointed prophets, priests and

kings in the hope of the promised Messiah

◦ All a preparation for, and figure of,

the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood
 The Church,
the New People of God
The People “of God”

◦ God is not the property of any one people, race, or ethnic group

◦ but acquired by God for Himself

through the Death and Resurrection of His Son Jesus

◦ membership: through a “new birth water and the Spirit”

(Jn 3:5), that is, by faith in Christ, and Baptism.

◦ with Jesus the Christ (the anointed, the Messiah) as Head.

A gathering together “in” Christ
(foreshadowed by the Torah and the Passover Lamb)
 The Church,
a “Messianic People”
A Messianic (“Christified”) People

◦ the same Anointing (Holy Spirit) flows from the Head

into the Body through Baptism.

◦ the status of the people:

the dignity and freedom of the sons of God

◦ its law: the “law of the Spirit” (Rom 8:2; Gal 5:25):
to “love as Christ loves” (Jn 13:34)

◦ its mission: to testify to the divine meaning of our earthly journey: “salt
of the earth and light of the world”
(Mt. 5:13-16)

◦ its destiny: the full realization of the Kingdom of God

at the end of time.
 All share in the triple office of Jesus
As Christ, Jesus carries out the work of Redemption in 3 ways:

Priest (“Life”) Prophet (“Truth”) King (“Way”)

• He offers sacrifice, worship • He witnesses to the truth • He establishes a kingdom
(His own Body and Blood) about God and about man. of holiness and justice
by “serving and giving his life
as a ransom for many” (Mt 20:28)

These offices are perpetuated in the Church in different ways

according to the different gifts given by the Holy Spirit to the baptized
 The universal call to “be Church”
and “do Church”: holiness and apostolate
A priestly vocation
• the call to turn one’s life into prayer: Rom 12:1
• the universal call to holiness
A prophetic office A kingly office
• the gift given to the whole People, lay and clergy, • the call to live one’s life as a service to God
of unfailingly adhering to the faith, deepening in and to neighbor
its understanding, and witnessing to Christ in the
middle of the world (“supernatural sense of • the universal call to
faith”) serve the poor and suffering
• the universal call to the apostolate
 TOPIC 12.3
NAMES AND IMAGES OF THE CHURCH

The Church as the “People of God”