The Mission of Messiah

The mission of Messiah, undertaken in the covenant of eternity, was not merely that of a teaching Prophet and an atoning Priest, but of a ruling King as well. His work was not to enunciate simply a doctrine concerning God and man’s relations to God, as some Socrates, for the founding of a school; nor even merely to atone for sinners as a ministering priest at the altar; it was, as the result of all, and the reward of all, to found a community, to organize a government, and administer therein as a perpetual king.

It will be perceived, therefore, that the primary and fundamental conception of the Church of God has its germinal source far back in the purpose of God, and that the Church naturally and necessarily grows out of the very form and mode of the scheme of redemption for sinners, as it lay in the Infinite Mind. As the purpose was to redeem not only elect sinners, but a body of elect sinners,-an organic body with all its parts related to each other, and the Mediator himself the head thereof,-it is manifest that in that purpose is involved ideally the Church as an elect portion of the race under the Headship of the Messiah, and distinct from another and reprobate portion of the human family.

- Stuart Robinson