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| Series Theme: The Body of Christ | |
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 1. The Church, his body
Eph 1:22,23 the church, which is his body
Some today may take this concept for granted, but for others it is either new or foreign. I can remember the first person I heard teaching on ‘the body', an itinerant preacher called Campbell McAlpine, and it was back in the closing decades of the twentieth century. Since then, through the charismatic movement in those same decades, its teaching filled out some more, and yet it is, I believe, as relevant today, if not more so in a day when frequently it appears ‘church' or ‘religion', that fills so many TV channels, is presented so often by suited men in expensive settings, conveying a religion that is ‘success' and ‘try harder' orientated, a poor reflection of the wonder of what is conveyed in the New Testament. Perhaps we try too hard and on the world's terms, and then wonder why in the West at least so many denominations continue to diminish with their obituaries being prophesied by the pollsters. The church is not big buildings or big organisations, it is not TV stations or radio studios, it is not individual ‘big people' with big incomes and ‘big ministries', it is all the believers who, corporately, and to use the concept we are going to follow and meditate upon from the New Testament, are referred to as ‘the body of Christ'. In fact, as we go on in the days ahead, we will see that every single, humble believer is a member or part of this ‘body'. Now right from the outset, let's state what will become obvious as we look in detail at what the New Testament has to say, that the picture of ‘a body' is used to convey thoughts about the life, action and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are two other concepts that are used to refer to the church in the New Testament. The first is ‘a temple': “ Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?” (1 Cor 3:16 etc.) and that is all about revealing the glory of God. The other picture is of a bride (Rev 19:7,8, 21:2) which is all about being united with Christ at the end. But the concept of the ‘body' is all about doing: “when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me… Then I said, `Here I am… I have come to do your will , O God.” (Heb 10:5-7) The ‘doing' is the will of God. We see it in the Gospels as, through one single human body, Jesus served the will of God as he brought in the kingdom of God on earth, and then the teaching of US being his ongoing body being worked out is seen in the rest of the New Testament. Put aside all thoughts of buildings, organizations etc. YOU, the believer, are part of this body.
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 2. Spirit Energised
Jn 14:16,17 I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- the Spirit of truth….you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
Second to the Atonement, I suggest this doctrine of the Holy Spirit and us, is the most important doctrine of Christian salvation. Jesus hinted at it and then we saw it with, no doubt limited understanding, on the Day of Pentecost, but it was down to the apostle Paul to spell out the fact that, whereas in the Old Testament times the Spirit came down and empowered specific individuals, now He comes upon and indwells every believer. In the previous study we noted, “ you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you ?” (1 Cor 3:16 etc.) To explain another facet of the wonder of this, he said to the Romans, “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you .” (Rom 8:9a) and in case they were not sure about that, he added, “And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.” (Rom 8:9b). i.e. to be a Christian means to have the Holy Spirit within you. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is spoken of as ‘the Spirit of Christ' or the ‘Spirit of God' as we've just seen in this verse 9, but He is the same Holy Spirit. In speaking thus, Paul is only taking Jesus' own teaching a little further: “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again,” ( Jn 3:3) and “no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit,” (Jn 3:5) and “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (Jn 3:8) Becoming a Christian is a work of the Spirit who then indwells us and is our source of power, guidance and direction. Now I suspect that this teaching that is prevalent through the New Testament comes as no surprise to most of us, but I wonder about the reality of it when it comes to everyday life? Life presents us with opportunity after opportunity where we need wisdom to know how to act, how to proceed, what to do. How often, I wonder, do we just plough on and do our own thing without any reference to Him, how often do we seek Him for both power and enabling and wisdom and direction? When it comes to church services - and I mention them because they are the corporate expression of this body we are considering – what difference would there be if the Holy Spirit did not exist? How many of our services are so preplanned and fixed that the Holy Spirit has no space to move? We are talking about the very presence of God Himself indwelling this body, the Church, but how much and how often do we allow Him to express Himself, or is that a completely alien concept?
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 3. Christ the head
Col 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church ;
The idea of Christ being the head of his body, the Church, is a fairly obvious one when you think about it and we also find it in Eph 4:15,16 and 5:23, and Col 2:19 as well as our verse above. Because it only comes from the apostle Paul and then only four times, we might think it is of little consequence – and I wonder how many times you have heard this preached upon? But if we are being presented with a picture of the church as the present body of Christ, then a reminder of who or what motivates this body is important. We have already noted that the body is energised by the Holy Spirit, but the direction for activity of the body – as with any human body must come from the head – must come from Jesus who, we are told in Scripture, is seated at his Father's right hand in heaven reigning in the midst of his enemies over the last times. Your human body and mine, functions with the aid of the brain (in the head) and the heart. If either stop functioning, your body stops living. The head brings purpose and direction to what the body does. Now is this just an academic point of theology or are there real, genuine practical outworkings of it. Well Jesus laid down an important principle when, speaking to the Jews, he said, “ My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." (Jn 5:17) This principle starts by suggesting that God is always at work on His earth (we may not see Him and we may not discern His activity but that does not mean He is not doing that). But then Jesus carried on, “ I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (Jn 5:19). If we link that to verses we quoted in the first study, we see something significant: “when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me… Then I said, `Here I am… I have come to do your will , O God.” (Heb 10:5-7) Jesus is also constantly at work, following the desires of the Father, to do His will. He did it then through one human body and he does it now by millions of human bodies all linked together by his Spirit and he energises them by his Spirit to do the will of the Father. Now the crucial question comes: do I as an individual member of this body, and my local church as a bigger expression within this body, seek out the will of God and respond to the head to be a working member of this body today? (Mt 6:33, Rom 12:1,2) If not, then our lives are a pale reflection of what they could be.
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 4. A Growing Body
Eph 4:15,16 we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body… grows
Many people don't like change but growth means change and that is what the teaching of the New Testament expects. Jesus taught, “ The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches." (Mt 13:31,32) His expectation was that the kingdom of heaven or ‘ kingdom of God ' as it is often referred to, the expression of the reign of God in heaven and on earth, would grow and become big. The Church is the expression of the kingdom on earth and it has indeed grown to be the largest spiritual body on the earth. How does it grow? It shares the Gospel and people respond, are born again and are added to the body, the Church. A local church that is not growing, clearly does not have the life of God flowing through it. We may say we are living in hard materialistic days – and we are – but nothing has changed in that respect and when Jesus expressed his Father's reign, people flocked to him. To the Colossians, the apostle Paul wrote of “the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. ” ( Col 2:19) Ligaments and sinews hold the various members together and enable them to fulfil their function. So what holds us together as individual members of this body? (i) Loving relationships that (ii) enable fellowship to occur and (iii) allow the Spirit to flow in and through us. This verse comes as a warning to the lone Christian who doesn't like ‘church' (and there are many today) but who forgets that they ARE the church and they will grow as an individual and enable the body to grow, only when they are with it. The writer to the Hebrew understood this when he wrote, “ Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Heb 10:25) If we are to grow numerically and grow in character and grow in ministry, then we need to be together so that fellowship (real heart and spirit encounter) can take place and we can be taught and challenged and encouraged (as the verse above says) and be built up. Part of growing is to become strong, strong in our faith, strong in our witness, strong in our ministry. This are all facets of growth and that is Jesus' expectation for his body. Are we growing as individuals and is our local church growing; if not, what's wrong?
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 5. A Serving Body
Eph 4:12 to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up
Some of these meditations are bound to overlap as we mention various things and then build more on them in later studies. We have at least twice spoken about Jesus' body that was formed when the Son left heaven and was born on earth with a human body, come to do the will of God. Now it is easy to speak of ‘doing the will of God' but what does that mean? Well if we take an earlier verse from Ephesians it might shed light on this: “ For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10) Now if we changed the words, “to do good works” for “to do the will of God” or even “to serve the purposes of God,” we have a variety of expressions that all point in the same direction but what they do is link the concept of ‘doing the will of God' with the idea or action or service. Expanding on the point we made from the beginning, the whole point of Jesus having a human body was to enable him to interact with other human beings to bring changes to their ‘fallen' lives – which often involved healing but also, essentially, brought about changes of mind, attitude and heart so that they came into the arena of God's kingdom. As he did this, so he was working out the will of the Godhead, planned from before the foundation of the world. It was a one-man strategy to touch and change the lives of others so that they in turn could touch and change the lives of even more. Thus today there are millions upon millions whose lives have been transformed and form ‘the Church' and (hopefully) express the kingdom of God. We will in the next two studies consider how this ‘service is both inward and outward but for the moment we remain focused on how it is upward. We are what we are and we do what we do because of the Godhead. It is all because of what the Father, Son and Holy Spirit agreed would be the plan to redeem fallen mankind, a mankind that they saw even before creating us, that would fall because of free will giving way to temptation, and yet free will was essential if love was to operate, under girding everything. Without it we would not truly be human beings, capable of freely receiving and giving love – or indeed rejecting it and withholding it. And so here we are today, with free will, drawn by the love of the Godhead, to express that love back as we respo0nd to them and do what they put before us, prompting us, guiding us, inspiring us and empowering us to do the same works Jesus' single body did (Jn 14:12).
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 6. A Self-Serving Body
1 Cor 14:12 So it is with you. Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.
In the previous meditation we focused in the ‘serving function' of the body of Christ, the Church, and particularly on the upward serving, the serving God, seeking to do His will. But there is what I also referred to as an ‘inward serving', serving the body itself. The apostle Paul wrote, describing the function of the ministry gifts, gifts of people to the Church, that their goal was “ to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:12,13) Now that is interesting because when we observe the outworking of those ministries, apostle, prophet etc. they so often involve, in our minds, developing the church by adding to it and so the apostle Paul was not only an apostle, he was also a leading evangelist, but having done that all his efforts went into building up the church and establishing strong and vibrant local congregations. We will go on to consider that outward serving which involves evangelism, which can take many forms, but having brought people to Christ, the role of those ministries is to build up the church to the church actually functions as it should becoming a more and more able vehicle for bringing the love of God to the world and seeing many more added (or at least that is how it is intended to be). So how do you and I go about building up this body, this local expression that we are part of. May I make some simple starting suggestions. First of all, be with the church when it meets, on Sundays, at it's various other meetings when it is possible to bless one another and fellowship together. (We'll talk about fellowship as a separate subject in a later study). Second, set your attitude to be one of loving acceptance of all the others in your local church (we'll talk about practical love in another study). Let there be no divisions in your thinking between you and anyone else in your church. The person you find difficult, determine to make time to be with them, to get to know them better, have coffee with them, share with them, change. Third, encourage one another. When others have led in some way, and you've been blessed, tell them so and thank them. Always look to say something positive about others. People ARE often what we declare them to be. If we speak badly of them, they will appear bad to us, when we speak well of them, we will observe a change in our thinking and in who they actually are. Bless them and be blessed.
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 7. A World-Serving Body
Gal 6:10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people , especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
There is among many Christians, I fear, little concern for the fallen world outside the church apart from it being fodder for the Gospel, and many Christian lives are taken up simply with Christian meetings, and yet the truth is we are called to be salt and light (Mt 5:13-16) and you cannot be that unless you are actively involved with the world. A number of years ago the Lord impacted me with the above verse which had always seemed to me to speak of the church – the family of believers – and yet the call is to “do good to all people,” and if that wasn't enough the apostle Paul also wrote, “always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else .” (1 Thess 5:15). There are Christians who believe God hates the world, hates all sinful unbelievers until they repent and turn back to Him, but this is still His world and there are still many who will turn to Him that we cannot see at the present. In that most famous gospel verse, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,” (Jn 3:16) the indication is that ‘world' means everyone. God cannot stop loving because He IS love (1 Jn 4:8,16). Jesus' example should convince us. He came and healed thousands, many of who selfishly walked away and disregarded him and some even cried against him – yet he still healed them! I have known God healing unbelievers when I've prayed – and they are still unbelievers (for the time being) – but our acts of love and goodness are to glorify God (Mt 5:16) and that happens when the unbeliever suddenly sees and becomes a believer. Love opens hearts. Perhaps one of the most powerful commands from the Lord in this respect came through Jeremiah to the exiles in Babylonia , people who had been carried away by Nebuchadnezzar and apparently had no future as God's people in his land: “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jer 29:7) I find that absolutely remarkable. Look to bless this pagan place where you have been taken as an exile – yes, that means all these Babylonians – and even pray for them and as you do that I will bless you. Now this has to have a practical outworking. Get involved. Join groups that are not run by Christians, be salt and light in that group. Seek to bless the community by your active presence in it; become a volunteer where volunteers are needed. Ask the Lord to show you ways that you can be part of your local community and how you can bless it.
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 8. A Network of Love
Eph 4:16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
I wonder if you found an unbeliever and asked them to give you one word that described the Christian Church, what it would be? I fear some might say, isolationists, arrogant, bigoted, hypocrites, and if that is so it simply suggests we have a lot of work to do in changing ourselves, changing our churches and changing the perception of those around us. THE word that should come to mind is love or loving. We might say faith but the world around us probably doesn't understand what that word really means, but love is much easier to understand. When Jesus came to Lazarus's tomb, he wept and “ Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" (Jn 11:36) Jesus' tears signified to the Jews at least, love. (They may have been more for the effects of sin bringing death and mourning than for Lazarus who he knew he was going to raise.) This is the point: love is expressive. The apostle John built a whole teaching on this: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” (1 Jn 3:16) Jesus dying on the Cross was a demonstration of his love for us (see also Jn 3:16). John followed on, “And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” (1 Jn 3:16,17) i.e. if we have needy people among us, love says, “What can we do to help?” Love doesn't let brothers or sisters struggle on their own, love reaches out to bless and to help. To simply say, “I will pray for you,” is inadequate. Every member of the Trinity expresses themselves in love. “God IS love ” (1 Jn 4:8,16) and that Jn 3:16 verse speaks of God's love. Jesus came to express the Father's love and did it by healing people, delivering people and accepting sinners. When the Holy Spirit moves, He expresses the love of the Godhead, therefore when we minister, presumably under the anointing, direction and power of the Holy Spirit, everything we do should be an expression of love. When we encourage one another, when we speak words of prophecy over one another, when we pray over one another, do those on the receiving end feel loved? I have witnessed people praying for other people, maybe for healing, maybe for other things, and I have felt, “All you have done is left that person feel condemned and a failure.” Think how you would feel if you were being prayed over, how would you want to feel? Loved! We have work to do, even as we share the Gospel.
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 9. Be who God has made you to be
Rom 12:6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.
If churches have problems, one of them is that so often we try and cast everyone in the same mould. Now in one sense that is right for we are all being shaped into the likeness of Jesus (see 2 Cor 3:18) and as far as morals and ethics are concerned, that should be true but the greater reality – and you see this in all of Creation – is that God loves diversity. The apostle Paul touched on this in his famous chapter on the different parts of the body – and we will consider that more fully in the next meditation – when he speaks of us as different parts of the body: “ The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.” (1 Cor 12:12) and he goes on in his analogy to speak of the foot, the hand, the eye, the ear and he goes on, “But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” (1 Cor 12:18,19) Note, “God has arranged.” The Lord gifts us, He gives us different abilities according to His grace (His Holy Spirit's enduing with power to act in specific ways). Regular readers will know one of my favourite verses in the New Testament is, “we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10) We are what we are because God (through Jesus reigning at his Father's right hand) through His Spirit, has brought us into being with different personalities, different gifts, abilities, desires etc. Writer Gary Chapman in his “The Five Love Languages” suggests our different preferences for the way we show or receive love, then there is Patrick Morley's, “The Six Worship Languages” that goes right back to Gordon MacDonald's “Six leading Instincts of the Soul”, which is opened up even more by Gary Thomas's “Sacred Pathways: Discover your Soul's Path to God”. All of these writers grasp at the same thing – we are all different. (This has even been taken into ‘Learning Styles' although this has been questioned by some). Perhaps a personal application: the Bible thrills me, I come alive with it. Prophecy and preaching bless and thrill me. Worship, I long to go deeper with a greater reality. Prayer, I'm limited. Evangelism, I love sharing with those who want to know and although I have brought a number to the Lord, I grieve that it is so few and long to be gifted, but I am not. So how about you? What thrills you in the Christian life? Build on that. What gives you a buzz? Develop it.
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 10. The Interacting Body
1 Cor 12:27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
In the previous study we were saying, know yourself and be yourself, but there is an inherent danger in that and we need to confront it because, as the apostle Paul was saying to the Corinthians, we are many members, many different members, but we are still all one body. There are two things to particularly note in this area. First, it is recognising my individuality, I also need to recognise the individuality of all the other members. So often we think, ‘if only everybody was like me life would be good', but the truth is, they're not! Let's take the example of someone with evangelistic gifting. So often such a person thinks that the only thing the church should be doing is evangelism and so lays guilt on those who are not so gifted. Then you have the prayer warriors, the intercessors for whom there is nothing so important as prayer, and ‘we should all be spending all our time in prayer.' Or there is the person with the gift of mercy who cannot see why the church is so slow in picking up on the poor and needy in and around the church. And as for those with their heads in the Bible, they bemoan the fact that the church is full of so many Bible-illiterates! And so it goes on. What is the lesson here? Obviously, we are all different and we need to rejoice in and celebrate those differences and allow ourselves to be stirred by those with a different passion from ours. Ideally we would all be witnesses for Christ who rely on him in prayer, feed on his word and be sensitive to the needy around us (just to pick up on those passions above – there are others). But to expand on that a bit more, the second thing is that we need to complement and support one another in our different gifting with different passions. As a church leader I always said to my people, “If you sense a direction for your gifting from God, tell us and we will support you and do whatever we can to enable you to fulfil that gifting.” If it is the gift of God, then it will flourish. If it is just the enthusiasm of the moment (I thought I was called to help kids on drugs after reading the Cross and the Switchblade as a young Christian – I wasn't!) then it will not produce fruit and sooner or later will just evaporate away. Instead of feeling threatened by the differences we see in people, we need to be encouraging and blessing them so that we are each able to fulfil the gifting God has given us and be fruitful in it. So often churches launch off on ‘campaigns' without, instead, looking to see the gifting they have within the flock and encouraging and blessing that.
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 11. A Body that fellowships
1 John 1:7 if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.
There is something special that happens when Christians come together. It is a very different thing from what occurs when say a local club or organisation gathers. I never appreciated this so much as on one occasion when I went on a teaching trip to inner East Malaysia . The denomination we were serving made up our itinerary and gave us plane tickets to get to various places. On one of the first legs of this journey, to cut a long story short, we ended up in a village in the interior but an interpreter had not arrived. Local church people had identified us as we got off the small plane and taken us to their village where for the first few hours all communication was by sign language. As we sat cross legged either side of a mat covered with food, eating with these believers, I have never felt more frustrated being unable to communicate freely with these believers who I knew had years before experienced revival. Yet there was something that flowed between us, something that united us, something that was special, even though we could not speak the same language. That ‘something' was what Christians refer to as ‘fellowship'. Put as simply as possible “fellowship” is about sharing your life with another Christian , and it is more than merely speaking; fellowship occurs when the Holy Spirit within us communicates a special unity that we have. You can sit in the same room with another Christian, you can be at of a Bible Study or even Prayer Meeting and you can remain separate and distinct – or you can fellowship. Fellowship occurs when you open your hearts one to another and it requires openness and honesty. When there is an openness to one another, the Holy Spirit is able to bring this special sense of unity, of oneness and this is fellowship. This is the potential of this ‘body' that is knit together by loving relationships, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. His presence in us is a remarkable thing that so much of the time we take for granted. He brings the revelation of who we are – or who we are not. I have walked into the presence of ‘church people' and known instantly that there was not a single Christian believer there. I remember another time, in my very earliest days after I had been born again, when I went searching for a local church and sat in the mid-week Bible study and realised that in a group of about twelve, only the minister and I were truly Christians! His presence in us can bond us or divide us. Be aware of the wonder as fellowship takes place.
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 12. A Glorified Body
2 Thess 2:14 He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is an unusual concept and, I suspect, one that is foreign to many believers. Glory is a strange concept. We get it when, in the Old Testament, the glory of the Lord filled either the Tabernacle (Ex 40:34,25) or the Temple (2 Chron 5:14 & 7:1). It was an immense brightness revealing the presence of the Lord. Generally we might say it means divine splendor so in our verse above it might read, “that you might share in the divine splendor of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In his prayer before the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus used this word six times. Sometimes it was about himself: “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” (Jn 17:4,5) i.e. Father I have revealed your divine splendor by what I have been doing, but I realise that has been limited so let the same splendor that I have when I am in heaven be seen by the things that are about to happen (my death, resurrection and ascension). Sometimes it was about us: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.” (v.22) This must refer to the work of the Holy Spirit who unites us by bringing life to us all as He indwells us. In other words, the presence of the Holy Spirit within us should be revealing to all onlookers the presence and divine splendor of God, by who we are and what we do. Who we are? Are people able to look at us and see something different about us, not an arrogance or self-centred piety but a humility that expresses love and goodness and is there to bring God's love and goodness to whoever we find ourselves with, as much as they may be open to us. What we do? We have just touched on that because it should flow out of who we are. Jesus touched on this when he taught, “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Mt 5:16) i.e. let God's goodness and presence and divine splendor be seen through the good that the Holy Spirit inspires you to do. When we forgive, when we love, when we do good, when we bless, when we persevere, when we are patient, when we are kind, is it with such divine inspiration and empowering that people look on and wonder and say, “How can you be like that? I want what you have.” Who was the famous saint who said, “Evangelize by all means; use words if you have to.”? God's glory is revealed more by deeds than by words (Acts 2:22 where words are not mentioned!).
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 13. A Dead & Alive Body
Rom 8:10,11 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
There is a point where individual and corporate concepts of the body come today in an unusual and mostly un-thought of way. We, with our individual bodies make up the corporate body that is the body of Christ, the Church, and there is something about our individual bodies that should surely impact the whole of the bigger body. In Romans 6 to 8 the apostle Paul tackles the subject of the power of sin in the believer and we find a number of references to the life we live in our individual bodies, for example, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.” (Rom 6:12,13). It IS humanly possible for a believer to go on sinning but everything about our encounter with the Lord works to help us counter that, so when Paul twice in these verses says, “Do not” he is instructing us to make a purposeful effort. But as he develops this in chapter 7 he shows that humanly speaking he cannot master Sin and so it is only when we come to chapter 8 that he talks about the work and life and power of the Holy Spirit who is the practical means to enable us to do what our transformed minds now want to do. So if this is true of our individual bodies how much more must it be true of the corporate body made up of all us individuals? What are the practical outworkings of this suggestion? First the whole picture of ‘Church' should convey to the world a people who have been transformed and who are utterly different, not allowing any of the works of the old self-centred and godless life to be seen. So, for example, to take Paul's prohibitions in Colossians 3, there should never ever be any sign of sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language or lying (Col 3:5-9) but instead the body should be characterized by “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience,” (Col 3:12) and “love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” ( Col 3:14) Is that what we see in our local church(es) and in the Church at large? Is that the image ‘church' conveys? If not we have some work to do!
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 14. A Broken Body
Luke 22:19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."
There is something about this phrase from Jesus, “This is my body given for you.” I always thought it was ‘this is my body, broken for you' but it isn't there in the text although the language of action conveys that, as Jesus then broke the loaf and gave it to his followers. The giving that Jesus refers to must surely mean his giving himself to the will of God to die on the Cross, particularly when he goes on to speak of the cup of wine, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” (Lk 22:20) There are two thoughts about the body that flow from this. First it is all about self-sacrifice. Without doubt, not only was the Cross a sacrifice of the Lamb of God (see Jn 1:29,36) for the sins of the world, but the Cross was also a picture of supreme sacrifice as Jesus' words of anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane show (Mt 26:36-44). As we have noted earlier in these studies, Jesus came to do his Father's will, as painful and awful as it was about to be. A willingness to die for the world was at the heart of Jesus' mission. For many of us ‘church' conveys peace, comfort, nice songs or chants, liturgy, and joyful Sunday mornings but actually the attitude of willing self-sacrifice for the needs of those around us should be a characteristic of this body. Sacrifice means time, energy, work and a willingness ‘to go', to volunteer, to be available to the Lord for whatever He wants to use us for. The second thought that flows out of these thoughts is related to the above one which would have preferred peace and comfort and, above all, lack of change. Many of us feel upset whenever change is mooted but this loaf was broken so that it could be shared around, and that spoke of change. We have already referred to the growth factor in these studies about the body of Christ, and growth means change. There is something very intimate when a small group comes together and church life is expressed, but if it is genuine ‘life' then the group will grow and develop and change. Whereas in a small group it is easy to minister to one another and have words of prophecy brought, say, when the numbers grow, that is difficult to administer (though not impossible). And then someone gets a vision for a church plant and volunteers are called for to start the new plant, and people leave to do it. Uncomfortable change. We miss people and miss their contributions, but these things are necessary if the church is truly to grow. Constant ‘breaking up' is an essential for kingdom growth.
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Short Meditations on the Body of Christ: 15. A Reigning Body
Eph 2:6,7 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus
And so we come to the last of this particular series which leaves us realizing a crucial spiritual reality – and it is spiritual. We have considered that we, the Church, are Christ's body on earth today, and that he is still the head of the body, even though he is seated at his Father's right hand, ruling in heaven over all things. So positionally Christ, the Son of God, is in heaven with his Father, but we have also observed that we are indwelt by his Holy Spirit who not only unites us with each other, but now also with him in heaven. And so he now wants us to grasp this picture that Paul brings to the Ephesians, that because we are untied with him by his Holy Spirit, it means that we too, having been raised to new life after dying to the old, are in a sense, sharing with Christ in his role as the present king ruling over all things. Now is this just an academic or theological nicety or does it have any practical outworking? Yes, it is far more than just a theory, it is an overall picture of how the body is supposed to work to bring about the will of God, the reign of God on the earth. First of all this means a change of understanding. We are to see ourselves as sharing with Christ in his rule, so that, second, as we listen to him and sense and receive the revelation of His Holy Spirit, so we are led to do the things on his heart and those things will bring change on the earth. Third, we will see these things as incomparable riches of grace, amazingly wonderful expressions of his love and mercy that come to us through his kindness, here within the body so that the body uses this grace to perform signs and wonders to bring changes on the earth. Every time you pray, every time you command in the name of Jesus, as he leads you, so his grace is released in the form of power so that things are changed on the earth, people released, people delivered, circumstances changed. Every time we bind something in his name (Mt 16:19 & 18:18) the power of the enemy will be annulled. We have much to learn about being his servants, about wielding authority and bringing in the reign of the kingdom of God , as we experience what it means to be “seated with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus”, i.e. as we experience what it means to be part of the active body led by the head from heaven. Hallelujah!
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