The Body of Christ
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:12-13
Perhaps the most intense and pervasive New Testament metaphor for the church is the body of Christ.
Just as hands, feet, head, and legs are members of one body, so too are we all members of Christ’s body. When we come to faith, we are joined to Christ, and we are joined to his body – the church.
Paul says the very mystery at the heart of the gospel is that Gentiles are one with Jews in the body of Jesus. The mystery of the gospel is that antagonistic people become one. People who, for every worldly reason, should be separated, are brought together in the gospel.
The New Testament has no concept for a Christian who lives their life apart from the local church. To be joined to Christ implies being joined to his body – the church universal.
When you hear someone say the “universal church” they mean all believers across time and space. We express our participation in that universal church by being part of a local church; we express our participation in the universal body by being part of a local body. It is the visible manifestation of this invisible reality.
In believing the gospel, we are joined to Christ. As the prophets said: he was broken for our iniquities and crushed for our sins – the punishment that brought us peace was laid upon him. I don’t want you to miss this idea: In the breaking of Christ’s body at the cross, there was also a miraculous coming together of his body.
God reconciled us to himself and with one another.
People who are naturally unlike us, naturally our enemies, are joined with us in one body.
Now, notice that the church is not called the “mind” of Christ or “soul” of Christ. But the body. A body is tangible – it’s real – it occupies space. Zoom out for a second. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, came to earth and wrapped himself in flesh. Jesus lived bodily, died bodily, rose bodily, and ascended bodily into heaven where he is today.
We are the church – what Paul repeatedly calls – his body here on Earth. We are the good news of Jesus made visible to the world around us in flesh and blood and living color. We are the body of Christ on Earth. Paul says that God is making his appeal to the world through us. We are his hands, and we are his feet.
The Family of Christ
Family is another metaphor that helps us think rightly about what the church is.
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone
Ephesians 2:19
14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
1 Timothy 3:15
Family helps us think about our posture towards one another. We relate to one another as brothers and sisters. Jesus is like our big brother who has brought us into the family of the Father.
This one is a little more familiar to us at Resurrection Church. As one of our primary values says, we live as a family of missionary servants.
