Jesus Is Rebuilding His Church — Not Christianity

Chapter One — Introduction
The Hard Word

Many born-again believers today sense that the words Christian and Christianity no longer mean or represent what they once did. In their spirit they know something is wrong. What they are feeling is not rebellion against Christ—it is a growing awareness that something has been substituted for what Jesus actually established.

The Father is now exposing one of the most dangerous ideas ever introduced into Jesus’ Church: the belief that Christianity—just as Rabbinic Judaism—is the faith or religion of the New Testament. It is not.

In this series, I will explain why neither Christianity nor Rabbinic Judaism represents the covenant faith Jesus and the apostles lived in, why God has allowed both to exist, and what the Lord is now doing to rebuild His Church. I will also show why Christianity, as a religious system, became a counterfeit of the true ekklēsia or in Hebrew, קָהָל (qāhāl) — the assembly of God’s people.

For most people raised in church, this assumption is never questioned. It is simply “how things are.”
You become a Christian.
You join a church.
You attend services.
You follow Christian doctrine.
You live a Christian life.

All of this seems self-evident—until you compare it with the New Testament.

But none of it is how the New Testament actually speaks.
The New Testament does not describe a religion called Christianity. It describes a people who are in Christ.

That distinction changes everything.

When Paul writes his letters, he never addresses “Christians.” He addresses saints, brothers, those who are in Christ Jesus, members of the body, the ekklesia (the Greek word translated church). When he describes conversion, he does not describe someone joining a religion. He describes someone being united to a Person, Jesus. A believer being grafted into Messiah and the Commonwealth of Israel, not a convert to Christianity.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

That is not the language of religious affiliation. That is the language of ontological transformation. Something has happened to the person. They are not merely believing something new; they have become something new.

Jesus uses the same language.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.” (John 15:5)

Branches do not join a vine. They are organically united to it. Life flows from the vine into the branch. Identity, nourishment, and fruitfulness all come from that union. Without it, the branch withers.

This is how Jesus understood His people. They were not adherents of a movement. They were extensions of His own life.

Paul makes this even clearer when he uses the imagery of grafting:
“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree…” (Romans 11:17)

Gentile believers were not grafted into a religion. They were grafted into a living tree — Israel’s covenantal root now fulfilled in Messiah. Their life came from Christ Himself.

None of this sounds like Christianity as we know it.

It sounds like something far more intimate, far more organic, and far more demanding.
It sounds like a Body.

Why the New Testament Uses Living Language
Because God’s people are a living body, the New Testament never uses institutional language to describe Believers.

Instead it uses:

• • Body (1 Corinthians 12:27)

• • Bride (Ephesians 5:25–27)

• • Household (Ephesians 2:19)

• • Temple of living stones (1 Peter 2:5)

• • Flock (John 10:16)

• • Family (Romans 8:15)

These are not organizational metaphors.
They are relational, organic, covenantal realities.

You do not join a body.
You are born into it.
You are born again.

That single truth exposes the error of religion.

Religion asks: “What do I believe?”
The Kingdom asks: “Who am I now that I am in Christ?”

This is why Jesus said:
“Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

And Paul states:
“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…” 1 Corinthians 12:13

Baptized into a body.
Not enrolled.
Not registered.
Not added to a membership roll.
Born.

The Church is not a religious organization.
It is a new humanity.

Christianity trains people to join churches.
Jesus creates people who become His Body.

Christianity believes the Great Commission is to preach the gospel and make converts.
Jesus uses His disciples to make more disciples in Him.

Part One
The Original Blueprint and the Great Substitution

Jesus did not come to start a religion.

That single sentence, if taken seriously, dismantles almost everything modern Christianity assumes. Jesus did not come to create a new faith system, a clergy class, a set of buildings, or a religious civilization. He came to restore a people — a covenant assembly living under the direct kingship of God.

In fact, Scripture does not describe a religion, it describes a relationship. A covenant relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit and we His children.

What He came to rebuild already had a name long before Bethlehem.
It was called in Hebrew, קָהָל (qāhāl) — the assembly of God’s people.¹

The People God Always Intended
In the Hebrew Scriptures, the people of God are never described as an institution. They are described as an assembly — a people called together by God Himself.

“The day of the assembly (b’yom ha-qāhāl)” Deuteronomy 9:10 (ESV)
Qāhāl referred to Israel gathered before Yahweh at Sinai, at covenant renewal, at the public reading of the Torah, and in worship and repentance. It denoted a covenant people under a King, not a religious organization.²

This was God’s original blueprint:
not clergy and laity,
not leaders and members,
but a family, nation, and living body.

That blueprint was not abandoned when Israel failed. It was fulfilled in Messiah.

The Great Substitution

So how did Christianity arise?
Because Satan needed a substitute.

The Kingdom of God advances through covenant people, not religious systems. When Jesus restored the qāhāl (assembly) around Himself, Satan could not stop it. So he did what he has always done: he created a counterfeit vessel.
Christianity became that vessel.

The Father allowed it because of the Times of the Gentiles (Luke 21:24). During this age, the gospel would go to the nations — but not yet in its fully restored covenant form.

“We have this treasure in earthen vessels…” 2 Corinthians 4:7 (ESV)
The treasure was real.
The vessel was temporary.

After the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70, the Jewish covenant framework of the ekklesia (church) was shattered. As the first apostolic generation died, Gentile leadership filled the vacuum — but without the Hebraic blueprint. Slowly, subtly, the people became an institution.

By the second century, Christianity had emerged as a new religious identity. By Constantine, it became an imperial system.⁴

The Bride was wrapped in Rome.
Yet God never abandoned His people. The Spirit continued to save, heal, and transform — even inside an imperfect vessel.

What Replaced the Temple
When the Temple fell, three post-Temple religious systems emerged.

Rabbinic Judaism
After AD 70, the Pharisaic stream reinvented Israel as a portable religion.
Sacrifice was replaced with Torah study.
Priests were replaced with rabbis.
The Temple was replaced with the synagogue.⁵

Christianity
The Gentile ekklesia reorganized into a Roman-style institution — clerical, hierarchical, law-centered, and imperial.

Islam
Islam arose as a third Abrahamic, law-based religion, claiming lineage and covenant apart from Israel and Messiah.⁶

Three religions.
One God.
Three rival systems — because all three arose from a broken covenant world.

The qāhāl (the people of God assembled together) never died.
It was scattered — and carried inside vessels.

The Call of This Hour
Jesus is not reforming Christianity.
He is calling His Bride out of it.
“Come out of her, my people…” Revelation 18:4 (ESV)

He is restoring His qāhāl — a living people under His kingship.
Not a religion.
Not a denomination.
A people.

Footnotes

1. 1. HALOT, קָהָל, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament.

1. 1. Deuteronomy 9:10; 18:16; 1 Kings 8:14; Nehemiah 8:1.

1. 1. Septuagint usage: Deut 9:10; Psalm 22:22; Joel 2:16.

1. 1. Eusebius, Life of Constantine; Nicaea (AD 325).

1. 1. Jacob Neusner, The Formation of Rabbinic Judaism.

1. 1. Sidney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque.

Part Two
Paul, Ioudaismos, and the End of Religion

The greatest threat to the gospel did not come from paganism.
It came from religion.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians was written because the gospel was being slowly re-packaged into a boundary-based identity system. The issue was not whether Jesus was Messiah. The issue was what kind of people His followers would become.

Loudaismos Was Not a Religion
Paul opens Galatians by recounting his former life:
“I was advancing in Judaism (Ἰουδαϊσμός) beyond many of my own age…” Galatians 1:14 (ESV)

The word Ἰουδαϊσμός (Ioudaismos) does not mean “Judaism” in the modern sense of a formal religion. In the first century it meant loyalty to Jewish ancestral customs and covenant identity — a way of life in resistance to pagan culture.¹

The same word appears in 2 Maccabees, where it refers to zeal for Jewish identity against Hellenism (2 Maccabees 2:21; 8:1; 14:38).
Paul was not saying, “I used to belong to one religion.”
He was saying, “I was fully immersed in Israel’s covenant identity.”

Revelation, Not Conversion
Paul continues: “But when He who had set me apart before I was born… was pleased to reveal His Son in me, in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles…” Galatians 1:15–16 (ESV)

Paul was not extracted from Israel’s story and placed into a new religion.
The Messiah was revealed inside him.

This is covenant language.
God did not move Paul into Christianity.
He re-centered Paul inside Israel’s Messiah.

Why Gentiles Created a Crisis
Gentiles were not being converted into a new religion.
They were being grafted into Israel’s Messiah and Israel’s covenant people.

“Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel… but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near.” Ephesians 2:12–13 (ESV)

The Judaizers wanted to preserve Ioudaismos as a boundary system — ethnicity, law, and ritual markers that defined who belonged. Paul saw that this would transform the gospel into religion instead of covenant.

So he fought.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek… for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28 (ESV)

Not because Israel no longer mattered — but because the Messiah had redefined who Israel truly was.

Galatians and the Death of Religious Identity
What Galatians reveals is that the real battle was not law versus grace.
It was religion versus covenant.

Paul was defending the qāhāl of God from being turned into a religious system.

Christianity would later become exactly what Paul was resisting:
a Messiah-centered religion with boundaries, institutions, clergy, and law.

Galatians exposes that this was already beginning.

The Pattern That Never Changed
Paul’s fight against Ioudaismos in Galatia is the same fight that later emerged between:

• • Judaism and Christianity

• • Christianity and Islam

• • religion and the qāhāl

Different forms.
Same counterfeit.

The gospel never created a religion.
It created a people.
And Jesus is still restoring that people.

Footnote

1. 1. BDAG Lexicon, Ἰουδαϊσμός; 2 Maccabees 2:21; 8:1; 14:38.

Part Three
The Counterfeit Vessel and the Three Post-Temple Religions

The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70 did more than end a war.
It shattered the covenant world in which both Israel and the earliest qāhāl (Jew and Gentile believers) had lived.

The Temple was not merely a religious building. It was the center of covenant life — the place of sacrifice, priesthood, calendar, authority, and national identity. When it fell, the spiritual infrastructure of the ancient world collapsed.

God did not lose His people.
But the vessels that carried them broke.
Into that vacuum stepped three great religious systems.

The Jerusalem Pattern Before Religion
“And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.” Acts 2:46 (ESV)

This verse preserves the living blueprint of the Messiah’s people. The apostles did not leave Israel, abandon the Temple, or form a rival religion. They lived as a Spirit-filled, Messiah-centered qāhāl (assembly) inside Israel’s covenant life.

The Temple courts were the public covenant center.
The homes were the relational, apostolic heart of the community.

The separation came only when the Temple was destroyed.

Christianity was born in the ruins.

Judaism: Covenant Without a Temple
Before AD 70, there was no unified religion called “Judaism.” There was Israel — a covenant people living under Torah, Temple, priesthood, and land.

After the Temple fell, the Pharisaic stream reorganized Jewish life into a portable religious system:

• • Sacrifice was replaced by Torah study

• • Priests were replaced by rabbis

• • The Temple was replaced by the synagogue

This became Rabbinic Judaism.¹
It preserved Jewish identity — but it transformed covenant into religion.

Christianity: Covenant Without Jerusalem
The Gentile ekklesia faced a parallel crisis.

The apostles were gone.
Jerusalem was destroyed.
Hebraic foundations were fading.

What emerged was a Roman-style religious institution. By the time of Constantine, Christianity had become an imperial religion rather than a covenant people.²

The Bride had been wrapped in Rome.

Islam: Covenant Without Messiah
Six centuries later, Islam arose claiming Abraham, scripture, and law — but without Israel or Messiah. Islam became the third great post-Temple religious system built from the same broken covenant world.³

Three Religions, One Broken Center
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam compete because they all emerged as substitutes for what was lost.
Each claims Abraham, Scripture, covenant, and God — yet none restores the original qāhāl (assembly, the people of God).

What Was Never Lost
The qāhāl of God did not die in AD 70.
It was scattered.
It was hidden.

It was carried inside earthen vessels.
“Come out of her, my people…” Revelation 18:4 (ESV)

Jesus is restoring what He promised:
“I will build My qāhāl.” (The covenant assembly)

Footnotes

1. 1. Jacob Neusner, The Formation of Rabbinic Judaism (Scholars Press).

1. 1. Eusebius, Life of Constantine; Council of Nicaea (AD 325).

1. 1. Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque.

Part Four
Timeline and Synthesis: From Qāhāl to Counterfeit (30 AD – 325 AD)

History does not move randomly.
It moves along fault lines.

Between the resurrection of Jesus and the reign of Constantine, one of the greatest spiritual substitutions in human history took place: a covenant people became a religion.

This did not happen in a day.
It happened through trauma, displacement, and survival.

Here is the timeline.

30–33 AD — The Qāhāl Is Born in Galilee
Jesus rises from the dead and does not tell His disciples to wait in Jerusalem first.
He tells them: “Go to Galilee, and there you will see me.” Matthew 28:10 (ESV)

Galilee is where:

• • the disciples were called

• • the Kingdom was preached

• • the people were gathered

• • the community was formed

Galilee is the birthplace of the Messiah’s qāhāl — the relational, covenant people Jesus formed before Pentecost.
Jerusalem is where the Spirit was poured out publicly.


Galilee is where the people were made.
Pentecost did not create the Body.


It filled the Body.
“They went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.” Matthew 28:16 (ESV)

There was still no Christianity.
There was only Messiah’s people.

33–70 AD — Apostolic Expansion
The gospel spreads to the nations.
Gentiles are grafted in.

Apostles plant qāhāl communities throughout the empire.
The battle begins:

• • Judaizers want ethnic boundary religion

• • Paul fights for covenant without religion

Galatians is written.

70 AD — The Earthquake
Jerusalem falls.
The Temple is destroyed.
The center of covenant life is gone.

Israel fractures.
The ekklesia loses its anchor.
Everything changes.

70–135 AD — Survival Systems Form
Rabbinic Judaism forms as a portable religion.
The Gentile ekklesia becomes increasingly Roman and Greek.


Jewish believers are pushed out of both worlds.
The original qāhāl (assembly) disappears from view.

150–300 AD — Christianity Emerges
The Church Fathers create theology divorced from Israel.
Greek philosophy replaces Hebraic worldview.


Clergy replace apostles.
Bishops replace elders.

Christianity becomes a religion.

312–325 AD — The Counterfeit Is Crowned
Constantine converts.
Nicaea defines orthodoxy.

The Church becomes the Empire.
The vessel becomes the kingdom.

The Great Truth
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam did not arise because God created religions.
They arose because the Temple fell and humanity tried to replace covenant with systems.

When the altar was gone, people built institutions.
When priesthood was lost, they created clergy.
When God’s dwelling was destroyed, they invented religions.

But the qāhāl — the assembly of God’s covenant people — never ended.
It was scattered.
It was hidden.

It was carried through history inside imperfect vessels.
Now it is being regathered.

Jesus is not repairing the religion called Christianity.
He is rebuilding His qāhāl, His church, starting in the Galilee.

What He is restoring is not a system.
It is a people. It is a family.
A community of the Redeemed