That the church in the present dispensation is really a continuation of the ancient Hebrew church, is shown by the illustration of the good olive tree. That ancient church was God’s olive tree, and that olive tree has never been destroyed.[358] Because of unbelief, _some_ of its branches were broken off; but the proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles does not create a new olive tree; it only grafts into the good olive tree such of the Gentiles as believe; giving them a place among the original branches, that with them they may partake of its root and fatness. This olive tree must date from the call of Abraham after the apostasy of the Gentiles; its trunk representing the patriarchs, beginning with the father of the faithful;[359] its branches, the Hebrew people. The ingrafting of the wild olive into the place of those branches which were broken off, represents the admission of the Gentiles to equal privileges with the Hebrews after the expiration of the seventy weeks. The Old-Testament church, the original olive tree, was a kingdom of priests and an holy nation; the New-Testament church, the olive tree after the ingrafting of the Gentiles, is described in the same terms.[360] When God gave up the Gentiles to apostasy before the call of Abraham, he confounded their language, that they should not understand one another, and thus scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth. Standing over against this is the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost, preparatory to the call of the Gentiles, and their ingrafting into the good olive tree.[361] We have followed the Sabbath to the call of the Gentiles, and the opening events of the gospel dispensation. We find the law of God, of which the Sabbath is a part, to be that which made our Lord’s death as an atoning sacrifice necessary; and that the great original of that law is in the ark above, before which our Lord ministers as high priest; while a copy of that law is by the new covenant written within the heart of each believer. It is seen, therefore, that the law of God is more intimately connected with the people of God since the death of the Redeemer than before that event.