Here's a question worth pondering: What
is church? What was Jesus talking about when He said He would build
His church (Matthew 16:18)? And what was He talking about when He
said that the gates of hell will not prevail against it?
Here's a little piece of the answer to
that question:
Paul, speaking of the Father putting
all things in subjection to Jesus, said, “And He put all things in
subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to
the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in
all” (Ephesians 1:22-23). Read that a couple of times. Is that
really there? You may need to grab your Bible to make sure I didn't
take it out of context or use a wacky translation. When I was first
made aware of that verse, my world started to change. All
things in subjection under Christ's feet. Yay, praise the
Lord. He is head over all things to the church. Yeah, that
sounds good too (the walking out of it is a little more difficult,
but it sounds good all the same). The church which is His body,
the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Wait a minute. It's
easy to skim over the whole body thing, we've heard it a hundred
times, “we are the body of Christ.” But it puts it in a little
different light when you realize that the church, His body, is the
FULLNESS of Him. Whoa.
What is a body? “For even as the
body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the
body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ” (1
Corinthians 12:12). There is an idea here of inseparable
connectedness. Think about your physical body. What would happen if
the parts of your body were only connected once a week? What if your
left hand had a fight with your right hand and decided to leave?
What if your left foot had a serious disease and the rest of the body
did nothing about it? The Holy Spirit gave Paul this comparison
between the church and a body for a reason. Let us take it
seriously.
Think also about the relationship
between your head and your body. Your body carries out the thoughts
and desires of your head. Your head thinks, “I want to drink a
glass of water,” so your feet walk to the cabinet, your arm raises
up to the cabinet, your hand grabs the glass, and so on. There is no
room for independent thinking in your body. Your feet don't come up
with good ideas and go carry those out. The body is unified and has
one purpose: to carry out the thought of the Head.
So, the church is a called out people,
called to be a body, Christ's body, the fullness of Him. Let us take
this before the Lord and ask Him what it looks like for us to be His
body, to be the fullness of Him here on this earth, to carry out His
thought.
