There is a theme woven throughout the Old Testament of something existing or being built, then being removed or destroyed, and later restored.  The city of Jerusalem is a prime example of this.  It was built, and later was destroyed by the Babylonians.  Then, after the captivity, we hear the cry of triumphant, “So built we the wall!”

I have already shown that the New Testament Church was the fulfillment of that city.  What happened to it?  Where is it today?  The prophet Isaiah showed that it would become apostate.  He said, “How is the faithful city become an harlot! It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.  Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water” (Isaiah 1:21-27).

After the glory of God was lavished upon God’s Church in the first century of the Grace Age, the Church forsook the way of God and went into the corruption of idolatrous worship.  However, Isaiah continued, “I will turn my hand upon them – and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning:  afterward thou shalt be called, The City of Righteousness, The Faithful City” (Isa. 1:21-26).  This shows that The Twelve will be restored and functioning in the Church when Jesus returns.

In Isa. 51:9 and 52:1-2, God used the precept of rising again, as from the dead, prophesying of the Church.  He said, “Awake, awake, put on strength, as in the ancient days. – O Jerusalem, the holy city: Shake thyself from the dust.”  Paul applied this prophecy to us, saying, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14).

If every Christian is a part of God’s Church, these Scriptures would be meaningless, because The Church could not die without Christianity being completely eradicated.  There are various allegories which embody this theme.  I will list only three of them here:

1) Abraham dug some wells.  The Philistines stopped them.  Later, Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father (Gen. 26:18).  And he named them by the same names that his father had named them

2) Job had seven sons and three daughters together with great wealth.  Then he lost it all, but “the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.”  The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.  God also gave him seven more sons and three more daughters (Job 1:19 and 42:10-13).

3) Solomon built the temple.  The Chaldeans destroyed the temple.  Later Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Joshua, the son of Josedech, rebuilt the temple (Ezra 5:11).

The allegory of the wells which Abraham and Isaac dug, shows us that there was to be three phases of God’s Church, in both the early and the latter days, besides the phase in which a covenant is given.  In the case of the early disciples, the three phases are not clear, just as they are not clear in the wells which Abraham dug.

Jesus fulfilled Abraham’s covenant at Beersheba when He sealed the New Covenant with his blood.  Afterward, there were three more phases of The Church: the building and perfecting of it by Peter, the preserving of it by James, the Lord’s brother, and the decline of it under the leadership of Jude.

In Isaiah 12:3 he said, “With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.”  Peter’s testimony surely confirms that the early disciples did just that.  He said their experience was “Joy unspeakable and full of glory.”  However, “the Scriptures cannot be broken.”  So, when the early disciples had fulfilled the prophecies concerning them, the wells were stopped.

The three wells which Isaac and his servants dug later are very distinct.  That is because the divisions of God’s Church among the Gentiles were to be more distinct than those in the early Church.  But we will consider Isaac’s wells later.