Outward gatherings and godly individuals. In the Christian understanding, there have been two outward gatherings of God’s people. The first gathering was that of the Old Covenant, while the second is that of the New Covenant.
These covenants express an intentional relationship between God and groups of people, not merely individuals. Throughout the Old Testament, there are stories of individuals who were obedient to God’s Spirit but who were not part of God’s Old Covenant people. God’s physical gathering of a people does not deny God’s activity in the lives of individuals outside the group. Rather, it illustrates that what God intends to convey to humanity is a message and a Spirit too great to be contained within individual lives. God’s message requires the shared life of a gathered people. A gathered people can show forth more divine power than a collection of individuals, and being part of a gathered people provides clarity, power, and community to the individual.
The Old Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, God gathered people as a religious nation. There were religious rites and ceremonies, and there were governmental laws and regulations. There were kings, judges, and priests. There was an army.
This religious nation carried the message that there was one God. This religious nation carried the message that God required justice. This religious nation earned many messages Christians continue to this day. But this religious nation was limited in the messages it could carry. It was limited by its being a nation. Nations make war. Nations defend territory. Nations include criminals and innocents. Nations police and punish.
The New Covenant. Before the life of Jesus, God’s Spirit was at work in individual lives, but under the New Covenant, Jesus makes possible a greater outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This greater gift of the Spirit marks a difference in degree of relationship with God. It is the same gift, but more of it. It is the same Spirit, but more of it. The New Covenant is the gathering of God’s people directly by God’s Spirit. In presenting the New Covenant, God offers to His church the same relationship He offers to individuals: to be led by His Spirit, to be the temple of His Spirit, to be His visible body. The New Covenant focuses on the spiritual life of a gathered people rather than on individualized spirituality. The New Covenant is open to everyone who accepts it.
Believing Jesus to be the Messiah, Christians understand the New Covenant to be a more complete revelation of God’s will than the Old Covenant. Friends have referred to specific scriptural descriptions of the New Covenant in highlighting our understanding of it.
The eighth chapter of Hebrews, where the New Covenant is described, reviews God’s promises (in Jeremiah 31:31-34) to forgive the sins of His people, to write His laws directly upon their minds and hearts, and to be so intimately known by each of His people that there is no need for His people to teach one another—all of God’s people will know Him directly and personally. Friends emphasize being taught by God directly and personally. We are all to know God. This knowledge is Eternal Life (John 17:3).
In Acts 2, the New Covenant is portrayed as the outpouring of God’s Spirit upon all of humanity. It is promised that all God’s servants, both men and women, shall “prophesy”—that is, shall outwardly reveal messages that have been inwardly received from the Holy Spirit. Friends’ worship and witness to others are understood as prophecy, in the sense of obeying God’s Voice within us in order to manifest God’s will to others. Friends expect both men and women to participate in vocal ministry during worship, to be active in explaining our faith and practices to others, and to live lives that exemplify our beliefs. In addition to a “gender-neutral” expectation for the expression of our faith (“in Christ there is neither male nor female” Gal.3:28), another implication of the Spirit being poured onto everyone is that we have a connection with everyone we meet. Christ’s promptings are within each human being. Friends often refer to this connection as the Light of Christ that “enlightens everyone” (John 1:9).
The Light of Christ reveals to us our darkness—our sinful attitudes and actions that block the Light. But the Light also reveals how we can be saved from these sins, which is to follow Christ’s promptings within us—to call upon and follow Christ as Lord. The journals and other writings of Friends express both the pain of recognizing the darkness within them and the clarity of recognizing the Light as they were obedient to Christ’s leading.
The New Covenant also introduces changes in the manner of worship. Jesus declares in John 4:23-24, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24). No outward ceremonies or rites are required for the worshiper to be accepted in God’s Presence. Instead, faithful people are to practice fairness, loving kindness, and humbly doing what God directs (Micah 6:6-8).
Finally, the group of people gathered into the New Covenant is not a nation but the Church, the body of people drawn together in following Christ. The people of the New Covenant do not engage in physical violence characteristic of warring nations, but they are willing to use love, faith, and hope against forces of evil and darkness. (1 Thessalonians 5:8; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5; John 18:36; Matthew 26:52-53)
From Traditional Quaker Christianity, Assembled and Edited by Terry H. Wallace, Susan S. Smith, John C. Smith, and Arthur Berk, (Ohio Yearly Meeting, Barnsville OH: 2014) Section 1.B, pp. 8-11.
