Matthew 16:18—“I will build my church”

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18).

BAPTIST/DISPENSATIONALIST ARGUMENT:

“In Matthew 16:18, the words ‘I will build’ (οἰκοδομήσω—oikodomēsō) are in the ‘Future Indicative Active.’ This tells us that the church is a new entity, distinct to the people of God in the Old Testament, and not something that pre-existed—i.e. the church did not exist prior to Pentecost. How else can the words ‘*I will* build’ be interpreted?”

(I)

A. T. Robertson

[Source: Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament (New York: Doran, 1908), p. 141]

The future [tense] … presents accomplished action which in any case may be either momentary, simultaneous, prolonged, descriptive, repeated, customary, interrupted, attempted, or begun, according to the nature of the case or the meaning of the verb.

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(II)

John Gerstner (1914-1996)

[Source: Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991), p. 190]

[The] meaning of the verb does not require absolute futurity. What is more important, the meaning of the verb does not require absolute newness. It can well mean that Christ is building up His church into its new and final form.

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(III)

Dr. Richard Bacon

[Source: Personal Correspondence, 01/08/2020]

Does tense, mood, voice (TMV) of a verb prove anything? Yes, it does, but I think this argument is placing far too much weight on it due to assumptions of the Dispensationalist. What do I mean?

Again, an unspoken assumption: Anything that will exist or any action that will take place in the future has no existence in the past. The objector asks, “how else can the words ... be interpreted?” It is strange that for over 1800 years, not a single commentator had noticed that there is no other way to interpret this verse (or even this TMV). Why would that be? Possibly because there are other possible and even more probable interpretations. The Dispensationalist comes to this verse (and specifically this tense) with two presuppositions: 1. The church could only have begun at Pentecost and not before, and 2. The Old Testament was entirely silent regarding the existence of the so-called “church age.”

In fact, the notion of God “building up” his people is a theme that runs through the Old Testament. I shall come back to the nexus between Acts 15:13-17 and Amos 9:11-12. For now, simply notice the theme: Ruth 4:11; Jer. 1:10; Ps. 51:18; 69:35; 147:2; Jer. 24:6; 31:4, 28; etc. Now it would be ridiculous to think that every time God referred to building up Israel, or his people, or that which had fallen down that this meant it did not exist prior to that time. So, we come to the passage in Matthew, not as an isolated passage, but as it develops the theme already begun in the Old Testament. Further, James seems to support this viewpoint in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem council. Here we have an inspired commentary on an Old Testament prophecy regarding the “church age.”

Amos 9:11-12—the Old Testament prophesied that God would come and “set up.” Note that the action mentioned was then future, but there is no doubting from context that Amos was referring to something that had previously existed, had become decayed, but would be “set up” (qum) in the latter day (future day). The language throughout the passage was that of Old Testament imagery: tabernacle, David, Edom, etc. If we depended upon that passage alone for our interpretation, we might think, as do Dispensationalists, that this is referring to some yet future Jewish millennium. But ... cue the New Testament.

Acts 15:15—“And to this agree all the words of the prophets.” Yes, all the words of the prophets, but specifically James chose to quote Amos in the following two verses: “After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.” Building the tabernacle of David refers to the same church of which Christ spoke in Matthew 16:18. Christ was referring to something that would happen in the future, but not something altogether divorced from the past, as James recognized at the Council of Jerusalem. He translated “Edom” as “the residue of men.” What I’m getting at is this: Christ’s building up of his church, his people, his Israel, is not a new idea. It is an idea that we can surmise from the Old Testament, but which James explicitly tells us in his speech at the Jerusalem council. For what its worth, the Greek in Acts 15 is based on the same verb as that in Matthew 16, though that is not definitive by any means.

Therefore, the TMV of the verb in Matthew 16:18 is not as definitive as the Dispensationalist thinks. Rather, it refers to Christ’s continuing the redemptive work of God in a fuller and broader way, to include the residue of men and particularly the Gentiles (translated as “heathen” at Amos 9 in the KJV).

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(IV)

More to come! (DV)