THE BODY
THE BODY
Ephesians 1:15-23; Ephesians 2:1-7; 1 Corinthians 12:13; 1 Corinthians 12:27-31
I wish to dwell a little on this and succeeding occasions, as the Lord may enable me, on the truth of the church, looked at in its different aspects, for it is very evident that the church is presented to us in Scripture in more aspects than one. For instance, in this chapter (Ephesians 2) it is noticeable that the apostle, beginning from the top, that is, Christ exalted as Head over all things, presents the church as His body, and afterwards as growing into a holy temple — just the reverse order to Corinthians, where he begins with the temple, and goes on afterwards to speak of the body. In Ephesians the apostle presents first the body; then he gives us the temple at the close of chapter 2; and finally Jew and Gentile “builded together for an habitation of God by the Spirit”. And I think I can understand the object in this order, for in unfolding the whole scope of what God has effected in Christ, it is necessary to begin from the Head, and then the thought of the body is introduced as His fulness, and from the body the Spirit works down to what is the present status of the church, that is Jew and Gentile “built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”. Each successive truth is dependent on the preceding.
Tonight I take up the truth of the body, first as it is seen in Ephesians, and then as it is viewed in Corinthians. The distinction is this: in Ephesians we get the truth of the body on the heavenly side, in what it is to Christ; in Corinthians we get it more on the earthward side (I do not know how better to put it), in its present aspect as the vessel of the Spirit here upon earth. For it is introduced in 1 Corinthians 12, as I understand it, in connection with the manifestations of the Spirit, “Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular”; and then, God has set various gifts in the assembly viewed in that way as the body. The subject of 1 Corinthians 12 is the manifestations of the Spirit.
I want just to notice, what I may enlarge upon on another occasion, that if we look at the apostle Paul’s work (I do not speak now about his work in the gospel, but his church work), we find a foundation spoken of as laid in Corinth, and the chief corner-stone presented in Ephesus. Corinth was the beginning of the apostle’s work when he went distinctly on his own line. Up to that point he had been working, to a very large extent, in connection with Jerusalem as a church centre. But Corinth appears to be the distinct starting-point of his work upon the line of the particular revelation given to him. In the first epistle to the Corinthians the apostle speaks of himself “as a wise master builder”; we sometimes render the word in English, by ‘architect’. What I understand by the expression is, that when he laid the foundation he had the plan of the edifice before him. In natural things, when the first stone of the building is laid, the architect sees the whole building, while other people, who know nothing about the plan, merely see the first stone. Then he tells us what the foundation was, “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ”. Ephesus was the climax of the apostle’s work and testimony in connection with the church, and that is necessarily the point of departure when failure comes in.
It exercised my mind somewhat, in speaking of the church, on which side I should begin, whether from the top or the bottom. But I thought it better to begin from the top, that is, from the body as presented to us in Ephesians, and then to work down to Corinthians, because I think that is the divine way. If anyone wanted to understand in the type of the tabernacle what the brazen altar imported, he would [p. 104] have to begin properly from the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat. If you were approaching God from man’s side, you must come by the brazen altar; but if you want to have intelligence about the brazen altar, then you have to begin from the divine end, from which God began in describing the tabernacle and its furniture, from the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat. And therefore, on the same principle, in speaking of the body of Christ, I prefer to begin from the top, from what it is in its relation to the Head, as presented to us in the Ephesians.
By the Lord’s help, I will try to give you two or three suggestive thoughts in connection with what comes out in these two chapters of Ephesians, and will then speak a little on the other side of the truth as in 1 Corinthians 12, where the truth of the body comes out in a very practical way. I do not think that Christians who ignore that chapter make very much progress. Sects and systems, it is very evident, ignore it, for the simple reason that they are avowedly sectarian. Every Christian denomination is sectarian. No state church can be universal, because it cannot properly go beyond the limits of the particular country to which it belongs. The only universal system is Roman Catholicism, which in the Christian point of view is apostasy. It is clear that in 1 Corinthians 12 you cannot find sectarianism, or any justification of it; it is “one Spirit ... one body”. And I have no hesitation in saying that where there is the ignoring of this truth, and where restrictions are placed upon the liberty of the Spirit of God, Christians will not get much light. I do not un-christianise them for a moment; for if there had not been some light to be got, none of us would be where we are, nor even converted. But the professing church has lost the truth of the body completely, and has in fact ignored the presence of the Holy Spirit. And until Christians leave sectarianism, and all of that order, and come to [p. 105] where there is liberty for the Spirit of God to act, they will enjoy but little light. Depend upon it, no greater evil has been done, no greater insult offered to the Lord than in ignoring the presence of the Spirit sent by Him from the Father. And it is astonishing how easily we too may drop into it. People will substitute all sorts of things for the Holy Spirit: a clergy, or a ministry, or formality or order; but I trust we have returned to the recognition of the presence of the Holy Spirit here, and with it to the manifestations of the Spirit.
I desire now to suggest two or three thoughts in connection with the truth of the body as it is presented to us in Ephesians.
The beginning of it is the Head; and the first thought that is introduced is the power which has set the Head in His place. That is, the power that “wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places”, and “gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all”. It is the power of God which has been effective in Christ, to set Him in the place of Head over all. There could not be any church until Christ was set in this place of Head; you could not talk about the body until the Head was there. God’s power has come out in two special things: first in raising Christ from the dead, and secondly in setting Him at His own right hand as man in the heavenly places, far above all principality and every name; and He has given Him “Head over all things”, which is the accomplishment, as has been often pointed out, of Psalm 8, “to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him which filleth all in all”.
I dare say we are all instructed as to the Head; but I am sure one cannot do harm in recurring for a moment to the truth. It was in the eternal purpose of God that He was to be Head to the body: but now [p. 106] God has set Him in His place as such, and every Christian is united to Christ.
Before I pass on to speak of the body, I want to give an idea of what union means, for it is a great point to start with. And I would remark here that we have no option whatever about our place in the church. A great many people in the present day — I do not speak of people that we are more intimately connected with — are taken up to a large extent with Christian activity, and ignore the church. But I say you have no option as to the church, because every Christian is united to Christ, though every Christian does not understand union, and does not get all the present good of it. But no one can rightly ignore the truth of the church as Christ’s body, because whether you know it or not, you are united to Christ if you have the Holy Spirit. And hence the apostle can say to the Corinthians, “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”. It is certain, in regard to the most uninstructed Christian, that he is united to Christ if he has received the Holy Spirit. It is a great thing to know the value of union, but that does not touch the fact of union. I should not be entitled to seek to understand union if I were not united; I could not understand it if I had not the thing itself, but being united I may seek to understand what the import of union is.
Now to guard against misapprehension, I feel it needful to say this — that when I speak of union, I do not mean union in the sense of marriage. Marriage has sometimes been spoken of as the declaration of union, but I do not get that now. The church is espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ, and has the bride-place in that way; but when I speak of union I mean organic union as of the members of a body to the head. It is very evident the Head was there before ever there was the body at all. Christ was set at God’s right hand in the heavenly places before the [p. 107] Holy Spirit was given; and when the Holy Spirit was given, then union was effected; it took place on the day of Pentecost. I do not think the 120 in the upper room on the day of Pentecost understood union, but they were nonetheless united; for every one received the Holy Spirit, and by the fact of receiving the Holy Spirit, they were united to the Head in heaven. The revelation of the truth of it had not yet come out. It was given to Paul, not to Peter or John, to complete the word of God; and he completed the word of God, I believe, by the truth of the body. That had not come out at first, and yet the body was formed. And it is most important to hold this fast; because if union is made dependent on the intelligence or understanding of union, it would be turning things upside down. It is a very important principle in divine things, that you understand the words by the thing, and if you have not got the thing, you cannot understand the words. Unless a man is born again, he cannot understand what being born again means. It is so with a great many other things. And unless a man is united to Christ by the Holy Spirit, it is totally impossible that he could understand what union means.
The first great truth which comes out here as to the church is that it is the fulness of Christ; that is the place which the church has, “his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all”. What I understand by it is this, that the church is proportioned morally to the One that fills all in all, it is His fulness — a very wonderful thing. I do not think any vessel will adequately display Christ save the church. And when it comes out, no one will be able to say that the body is disproportioned to the Head; it will all be the work of God. The Head fills all in all — that is what I might call the function of the Head; He will fill all things; Christ will fill the universe with good and with blessing, the fruits of redemption. He is the tree of life, and every family will live by Him; but every family will [p. 108] not be His fulness, the church is His fulness, the vessel in which He is adequately displayed.
I do not think that anything short of the body could display the Head, or that Christ could be displayed in one saint. Christ may be displayed in every saint in measure, but for an adequate display of Christ you must have the whole body. The body is His completeness — it is that which is adequate for the display of the Head. The thought of the body here is not as in 1 Corinthians 12: there it speaks of the body at any given moment upon earth; but here it is the body in the very fullest sense, it tells you what the church is, its proper place, the completeness of Him that fills all in all.
I pass on to the next point, to see how the truth of the body has been effectuated in saints. It says in verse 5 of chapter 2, “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved); and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. There is one expression in this passage used as to us which is not applied to Christ. And there are two expressions applied to us which are first stated of Christ. Christ is not here spoken of as quickened, but as raised and seated at God’s right hand in heavenly places. And we get in regard to the saints, “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”; that is, that the power which has been applied to Christ has operated in us, and what God has effected in Christ is true for the saints. Therefore you have to take the statement in two parts; first, as to what has been effected in us, in that we are quickened together with Christ, and then that what has been effected in Christ is true also for the saints.
Now I desire to show you where the truth of union lies. I tried to make it plain at the beginning that every saint is united to Christ, because every saint is [p. 109] in possession of the Spirit. But where the truth and secret of union lies is in the fact of a moral being in the saints, which has been derived from Christ; that is, that having been quickened together with Christ, we have received a being which puts us in association with Christ. In other words, it is like Eve being taken out of Adam; she got, in a sense, her being from Adam. So, too, the church gets its being from Christ: it has often been said that the church does not add anything to Christ, because it is derived from Christ. And that is what, I judge, the apostle means when be says, He “hath quickened us together with Christ”. It does not say, as in Romans, the Spirit is life; but in Colossians and Ephesians the saints are viewed not only as having received the Spirit of life, but the power of the Spirit has taken effect in them, and the apostle can go so far in regard to them as to say that they are quickened together with Christ, can view them as in a faith state in anticipation of what will be their actual state at the coming of Christ; and in this state they live with God in association with Christ, according as Christ lives with God; and that is where the secret of union really lies. As I said before, I am not denying the fact that every one that has the Holy Spirit is united; and the principle of everything that God has for us lies in the Holy Spirit. The apostle adds afterwards, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them”. He touches another side of the truth there; they had put off the old man, and put on the new, which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth, they were now partakers of the divine nature. The power of the Spirit had become not only effective towards them, not only were there fleshy tables of the heart, and a real writing of Christ, as in the Corinthians, but there was the actual formation of a moral being, in virtue of which they now lived in association with Christ.
[p. 110] Consequently what had been effected in Him held good for them. And that is where the truth of union lies.
The apostle is leading on to it when he says to the Galatians, “I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you”, that is, until they were brought into the true Christian state. And that is what the apostle was continually labouring at. What a wonderful thought it is that a believer not only has the Holy Spirit communicated to him, but that the power of the Holy Spirit in him has made him a partaker of the divine nature. Union could not be but on that ground. How could you be joined to Christ save as quickened together with Him? I admit that the same power which quickens you together with Him unites you to Him; but I say the enjoyment or understanding of union with Christ could not possibly be if you were not conscious that you were of a new order by the power of the Holy Spirit. Union is not in the flesh; we are not united to Christ in the flesh, or as men in the flesh; “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”, and the truth of union clearly lies in the Spirit. If the fact of being quickened together with Christ is once apprehended, I can soon take in the other points, that the power of God which has been put in operation in regard to Christ applies to me as being part of Himself and united to Him: Jew and Gentile have been raised up together, and made to “sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. We never could have been united to Christ simply as Jew and Gentile, but we are united in connection with a totally new spiritual being from Christ, who is at God’s right hand. You can understand it as I said from the figure of Eve. God took her out of the man, and builded her into a woman. And so it says of the church, “We are members of his body”; and that is where the truth of union lies.
One more thought in connection with Ephesians, before passing on to the other passage in Corinthians,
[p. 111] and that is, that God has effected all this for His own satisfaction. It says in verse 7, “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus”. The fact is, that the motive spring which led God to do it was love. God would have us in His own company, in His own place. It has been said that what love values is company. God acted from love. I could not possibly tell why God loved us in that way, but that is what Scripture states, “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us”, would have us there, in His own abode, in heavenly places; and therefore it is really for His own satisfaction. If you accept the truth that God is absolutely good and blessed, then what He does for His own pleasure must be absolutely good and blessed too, and He has done this for His own pleasure.
I hope you will bear in mind, by the grace of God, the two or three thoughts I have tried to bring before you in regard to the church on what I may call the heavenly side; for the more you enter into it, the better you will understand God, and the better you understand God, the more you will be able to apprehend the truth. It is remarkable how things act and re-act. The more I understand the truth of the church, the more I see that the springs are in God, and the more I enter into the knowledge of God, “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him”, the better I can understand the truth of the church. The first thing is the Head, and where God has set Him. Then the body, which is His fulness, proportioned to Him where, and as He is; and then how God has wrought to make it effective in us. And all is eventually for His own satisfaction. That is what the church is, as presented to us in Ephesians, and that is the climax of the apostle’s work. Here you have unfolded the counsel of God, and how God has given effect to His counsel.
[p. 112] If you turn now to 1 Corinthians 12, we shall view the body on the other side. The subject of the chapter is concerning spiritual gifts — “spiritual manifestations”, gives more the right idea — “concerning spiritual manifestations, brethren, I do not wish you to be ignorant”; the proof of this is in verse 7: “The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal”. Then in verse 11 it says, “All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will”. Then the apostle brings in the truth of the body, because the great point is that the manifestations of the Spirit are in the body, that there are no manifestations of the Spirit, nor are there any gifts, but what are set in the church as the body. He goes on to say, “For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many”. And then in verse 27: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the church”.
I think anyone reading the chapter would see that the prominent idea in it is not the body, but the Spirit. But as I understand it, the body is introduced as the vessel where the manifestations of the Spirit are set. I think the great subject of the first epistle to the Corinthians is the temple, and that God is actually here; but that identical with the temple there is a body in which are set the manifestations of the Spirit; they all come out in the members of the body. The idea I judge is, that the church is the glory of Christ. Some may not quite understand what that expression means, but I will tell you. The woman is the glory of the man, that is, that all that is of the man is reflected in the woman. There was no such complete reflection of man in any of the brute creation, God could not find anything among the inferior creation which was suited to be a helpmeet to the man. The [p. 113] woman was taken out of the man, and therefore reflected every moral quality of the man. You get another figure of it in nature, the moon reflects the light of the sun. When the moon is opposite to the sun, you get a full moon; that is, all the light of the sun falls upon the moon, and the moon reflects it, and in that sense the moon is the glory of the sun. So the church is the glory of Christ. The expression is used in 2 Corinthians, where the apostle, speaking of brothers whom he was sending to the Corinthians, says, that they were messengers of the churches, Christ’s glory. When Christ was here personally, everything that God had for man came out in Him by the Spirit of God. Anyone will recall that whatever Christ had to say to men, He said by the Spirit, and whatever Christ did for man He did by the Spirit. I do not think the Lord ever had any idea at all of operating here except by the Spirit. He says, “If I by the Spirit of God cast out demons”; Jesus of Nazareth, anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power “who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him”; “In the power of the Spirit” He goes to Nazareth, and says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor”. It was in the heart of God to relieve man from the consequences that sin had brought upon him, and from the power of Satan; but all that beneficence and good from God came to man through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Now I venture to say, whatever God has for man comes out by the Spirit in the church as Christ’s body. In the early days of Christianity if gifts of healing came to men, they were set in the church; or if God had light for men down here (and I think that is the great idea connected with the temple), it came out through the body. And that extends even to the revelation of God; for every bit of light that we get as to Christianity,
[p. 114] all the New Testament scriptures, came out through members of the body; “God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets”. All that God has to say to men and to bestow upon men, the relief which God has in grace granted to man, was set in the church. I think it is in that sense the apostle introduces the body here, as the vessel of all the beneficence of God to man; all these various distributions of the Spirit were in the church; all that which really displayed the good of God coming out through Christ to men was set in the church, because the church is the body of Christ. Christ was no longer here personally, but the body of Christ was here.
Thus in 1 Corinthians 12 we get the earthly side of the church; it is not the church looked at as the fulness of Christ, and it is not union which is taught in the chapter, though unity is taught there, but the church as the body is the vessel in which are set all the manifestations of the Spirit; and it makes us all dependent one upon another. When I hear people saying, ‘I never learnt anything from man’, that is a pretty good proof to me that they do not know much. If they simply mean that they never learned anything from man as man, that may be the case; but if they mean that they never learned anything through the instrumentality or medium of man, then I say they must be very ignorant persons. Because had they known anything of Christianity, they must have known it through members of the body. Paul and John were members of the body, though they were apostles, and all the light that comes to us, the very Scriptures themselves, come to us through the apostles, and the apostles were set in the church.
The practical application of it in the present day is this, that we should recognise the truth of the one body, “By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body”, “and have been all made to drink into one Spirit”. That was not a kind of mystical idea; it was [p. 115] a reality down here which saints were to recognise, that is, that they were one body by the baptism of the Spirit, so that the apostle could say to the body of saints at Corinth, “Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular”. Christ could not have two bodies at Corinth, any more than Christ can have two bodies in London. There is Christ’s body in London, and it is a very great point to recognise that fact. Because, if once I recognise it, I say I have done completely with anything which takes up distinctive sectarian ground. I will not be identified with apostasy, like popery, nor with a state church, nor with denominations, for the simple reason that I recognise the fact, “Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular”, and “By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body”, and the one body is the vessel here for the manifestations of the Spirit.
There is one point more, and it is that there must be room given for the Spirit, you must not place any kind of restriction upon the Spirit. For instance, if you have an appointed minister, if you do not give liberty of ministry, you put restrictions on the Spirit. You can never tell who may be a vessel for the manifestation of the Spirit, for the Spirit sometimes uses very unlikely people; He does not always employ the kind of vessel that would be naturally approved by man, because the Spirit is sovereign, and uses whom He will. You must recognise the truth of the one body, which sets aside all idea of sectarianism, and you must leave room for the free action of the Spirit, who distributes to every man severally as He will.
All this truth is as to the church on its earthward side, but it is vastly important; for if you do not recognise it, you cannot understand anything about the assembly as convened. The instruction is given to the Corinthians for the regulation of the assembly as convened, and to avoid confusion. We come together as mutually dependent, for we are all one body,
[p. 116] and every member of the body is dependent upon every other member of the body, as well as dependent upon the Head.
Suppose a man were to say, I am not going to concern myself about the body or about church principles, I am going to exercise the gift which the Lord has given me. My answer to him is this, God has set the gift in the church, and if you recognise that fact, you cannot ignore the church. Let a man be the most distinguished evangelist that ever was, he cannot ignore the church. An apostle could not, because God set apostles in the church. You have no option in the matter; you must, in the first instance, recognise the truth of the church, and that every gift is set in the church, and leave free room for the Spirit of God. And therefore, the most distinguished gift that a man could have, was not to overshadow every other gift. There may be members that are less conspicuous, and yet they are equally important. And it is not at all of God that the great gifts, the great luminaries, should overshadow everything else; because we are all set in the body in dependence upon the Head and upon each other. That is the principle of its constitution. May God give us to understand it better.
I have only one word more. People might say, What you have said may be a guide to us in regard to sects and systems, but what about those who profess to be on the ground of the one body? Well, beloved friends, it is not difficult to me. A great many bodies profess that kind of thing, but I say that though they have not given up ecclesiastical ground, they have given up the testimony, and I should have much more forbearance with those who have never seen the truth than with those who have departed from it. They have given up the testimony of the Lord in the sense of what is distinctive at the particular moment. They would assert quite as strongly as we would, and with quite as great zeal, that they [p. 117] are gathered on the ground of the one body, but I say that the different bodies who have departed at one time or another have given up the truth which the Spirit of God was making prominent at the moment. If that truth is union in the real power of it, they give it up, though they do not give up ecclesiastical ground. I do not care to take up ecclesiastical ground, and not go on with the testimony of the Lord. I believe at the present moment that the Spirit is bringing us back to the truth of the church in its heavenly character, as the fulness of Christ, not simply to the fact that we have received the Holy Spirit, but that the truth of union lies in that which we have derived from Christ, as quickened together with Him. The power which has wrought in Christ has been effective also in saints, who are “raised up together, and made to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. Many other things I could say, too, for it is very clear to me how one truth after another has been given up by those who have departed, while there is the insistence in the strongest way on ecclesiastical ground; but I do not think anyone who is really going on with the truth in the power of the Spirit is taken in by it. May God give us in His great grace rightly to balance things.