Ancient teachers from Greek philosophers to Qumran's founding teacher established communities of followers to perpetuate their teachings (as in Culpepper 1975:123; compare Albright and Mann 1971:195; Flusser 1988:35). The Qumran community described themselves as the qahal, the Hebrew word for God's congregation in the exodus narrative, which the Greek versions sometimes translate as ekkl h sia or "church." Jesus thus depicts his followers, his church, as the true, faithful remnant of God's people in continuity with the Old Testament covenant community (Ridderbos 1975:328; F. Bruce 1963:84). What marked it as new, however, was Jesus' specific designation "my community" (Ladd 1974b:110; France 1985:255).

Biblical tradition had often spoken of "building up" the community of God (as in Ps 51:18; 69:35; Jer 24:6; 31:4, 28). The gates of Hades is a familiar Semitic expression for the threshold of the realm of death. The words used here suggest that death itself assaults Christ's church, but death cannot crush us (Ladd 1974b:116). The church will endure until Christ's return, and no opposition, even widespread martyrdom of Christians or the oppression of the final antichrist (compare Jeremias 1968:927), can prevent the ultimate triumph of God's purposes in history.