But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:
The church is what it is so that it can do what God has called it to do. Essentially the church’s purpose is the same as Israel’s. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20; et al.) clarifies the methods God wants us to use. These methods differ from those He specified for Israel, but the church’s vocation is really the same as Israel’s. It is to be the instrument through which the light of God reaches individuals who still sit in spiritual darkness. It is a fallacy, however, to say that the church is simply the continuation or replacement of Israel in the New Testament, as most covenant theologians do. [Note: For further information on the subject of the church’s distinctiveness, see Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, pp. 22-47; idem, Dispensationalism, pp. 23-43; or Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, pp. 205-12.] Most theologians agree that the most basic difference between dispensational theology and covenant theology is that dispensationalists believe that the church is distinct from Israel whereas covenant theologians believe that the church is the continuation and replacement of Israel, the so-called "new Israel."