“The body of
Christ is his church – community. Jesus Christ at the same time is himself and
his church community (1 Cor. 12:12)…To be in Christ means to be in the church –
community. But if we are in the church – community, then we are also truly and
bodily in Jesus Christ. This insight reveals the full richness of meaning
contained in the concept of the body of Christ” (pp. 198 – 199).
“Since the
ascension, Jesus Christ’s place on earth has been taken by his body, the
church. The church is the present Christ himself. With this statement we
are recovering an insight about the church which has been almost totally
forgotten. While we are used to thinking of the church as an institution, we
ought instead to think of it as a person with a body, although of course a
person in a unique sense” (page 199, italics mine).
If what
Bonhoeffer says is true, then we have much to unlearn and much ground to
recover.
The Apostle John
writes that he wants his readers to have koinonia with him and his brothers and
sisters, because John and his friends have koinonia with the Father and the Son
(1 John 1:3). In other words, to have fellowship with John and his associates
is to have fellowship with God. Put another way, to be in the same fellowship
as John is, is to be in the fellowship of God. To be in the church - community
is to be in Christ.
As Bonhoeffer
points out, this is not about an institution but rather about a Person.
We simply don’t
think this way, we simply don’t see the church – community this way, we do not
see Jesus Christ this way. Yet, the Church, the Body, the Bride, the Temple is
portrayed as a living and organic entity throughout Scripture, an entity that
far surpasses and dwarfs our parochial concepts of congregations,
denominations, and traditions.
Let us recall
that Jesus asked, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“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 Cor. 12:12). This is not a
metaphor, this is an organic reality. This is Christ. As Bonhoeffer writes, this
is a “person in a unique sense.”
Perhaps the
following may help us. When you read the name “Israel” what do you think of in
a Biblical context? Most people probably think of a nation, a people whom God
brought out of Egypt, through the Wilderness, into Canaan, and who had a varied
history in the Ancient Near East. However, that is not the only way to relate
to the name Israel in the Bible, it is not the only thing the name Israel means
in the Bible.
In Genesis 32:24
– 32 Jacob wrestles with God and at the conclusion of the encounter God says,
“Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God
and with men and have prevailed.” Later,
in Genesis 35:9 – 13, God confirms Jacob’s new name, “Your name is Jacob; you
shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.”
When reading the
Bible and coming upon the name Israel, sometimes it will mean the individual
also known as Jacob, sometimes it will mean all of Jacob’s descendants, and
sometimes it will mean the northern kingdom which came about after the death of
Solomon. Beyond that, sometimes it will mean the People of God in Jesus Christ
– from ages past to the present and into the future. Many times it will mean a
combination! For now, I want to just think about the way “Israel” can refer to
Jacob and also how it can refer to Jacob’s physical descendants.
When I say or
write “Israel” do I mean the individual or the people? Context tells the
listener or the reader which I mean. There is even a sense in which I can mean
both at the same time because all of the physical descendants of Israel came
from the individual named Israel. We might term this as seeing the body of
Israel with Jacob Israel as the head of the body.
This imagery and
way of thinking is found throughout the Bible, so don’t be too quick to give up
on it, there is a lot at stake in understanding it. (Remember those passages in
Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 about “Adam” and “Christ”? You may want to take
another look at them.)
In a similar
fashion when I use the name Christ I may use it in the sense of the entire Body
of Christ, such as in 1 Corinthians 12:12, or I can write, “I have been
crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) and thereby refer to the Person of
Jesus Christ. Or we can have a passage in which we see both the Head and the
body in a living and dynamic relationship:
“Speaking the
truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even
Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every
joint supplies, according to the proper working of every part, causes the
growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:15 –
16).
St. Augustine,
in his wonderful expositions on the Psalms, beholds Christ the Head and Christ
the Church in psalm after psalm. At times he writes in effect, “The unity of
Christ and His Body is such in this psalm that I cannot distinguish between the
two, nor should I.”
While we may be
taken aback by such language and vision, we ought not to be, at least we ought
not to be if we believe Jesus:
“I do not ask on
behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;
that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that
they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent me…I in
them and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, so that the world may
know that You sent Me, and love them, even as You have loved Me” (see John 17:20
– 26).
We are called to
be one in the Trinity, to know the koinonia of the Trinity, to share the life
of the Trinity, to live in intimacy with the Trinity…and therefore with one
another.
As the Bride of
Christ the Church is bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh and one person
with the Bridegroom; let us recall that Scripture begins with marriage and
culminates with Marriage – let us embrace the glory of the Marriage of the Lamb
and His Bride, that unfolding Divine mystery – there has never been a marriage
march like that of Revelation chapters 21 and 22!
One of my lowest
moments as a pastor was being in a Sunday school class that was reading
Ephesians 4:11 – 16. The teacher read this passage aloud, paused a moment, and
then said, “Let’s move on.” Since this passage has been a key in my life since
the 1960s, since it has been an integral element of my vision, I just couldn’t
believe what I was seeing…well, yes I could.
For this “leader”
and this congregation were steeped in ethnic identity, they were imbued with
worldly political thinking, the collective leadership was controlling, and it
was most certainly “their church” rather than Christ’s church. (I suppose they
were not that much different from many congregations in one way or another.)
This teacher, a
leader in the congregation, could not “see” Ephesians 4:11 – 16, so blind was she
to the Body of Christ…and therefore to Christ. But she is not alone, is she?
From seminaries to denominational leadership, to pulpits throughout the land
(including so-called nondenominational churches), we do not see the Body of
Christ – this is the way we have been raised, educated, and the way many of us
make our living.
Jesus says in
John 17 that the key to evangelism, if we can call it such, is our unity in the
Trinity; but we think we know better so we ignore what He says.
The Church is
not an institution but a Person, yes, a unique Person, but a Person we see from
Genesis through Revelation. We cannot define this Person, but we can not only
live in this Person, when we live in Him we are one with Him and He is one with
us and we are one with one another. We are “members one of another” (Rom. 15:5;
also Eph. 4:25).
There is indeed
a chasm between the Body of Christ, the Church, as portrayed in the Bible and
as understood and practiced by American Christians (and beyond our shores). As
Bonhoeffer writes, we’ve forgotten that the Body of Christ is a Person.
The Good News amid
the challenge of recovering lost ground is that Jesus will teach us to “see”
and live in His Body, He will teach us to see Him throughout the Scriptures. The
Lamb will teach us to love His Bride and serve her. Jesus will teach us as
individuals, as husbands and wives and families, as congregations…and beyond.
However, He does
not promise that others will understand us. Some have given up on the Body of
Christ, the Church, and no longer want to hear anything about us as a People
whom Jesus loves. Others will allow nothing to threaten their parochial view of
church, they will not permit anything, include Jesus and the Bible, to open
their eyes to the communion of saints – nothing must threaten control. (I want
to emphasize that this includes so-called nondenominational churches and affiliated
groups, as well as more traditional movements and organizations.)
A telling
passage of Scripture is 2 Timothy 2:10, “For this reason I endure all things
for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also my obtain the salvation
which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” Consider that Paul writes
this in the context of the following two statements:
“You are aware
of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me” (2 Timothy 1:15).
“At my first
defense no one supported me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against
them” (2 Timothy 4:16).
Paul’s commitment
to the Body of Christ, to the Church, to those who are chosen, is not
contingent on how he is treated by Christians. The Body of Christ which he once
persecuted he now loves and serves whether or not his love and service is
accepted. Christians may reject Paul, but Paul will not reject them.
The cost of
discipleship, as articulated by Bonhoeffer, includes the cost of seeing and
living in the Body of Christ, and there is a cost, make no mistake about it.
The cost includes serving and laying down our lives for the Body of Christ (1 John
3:16; Colossians 1:24; 2 Cor. 4:12).
Bonhoeffer’s
images and words and concepts are strange to most of us, but he is rooting and
framing them in Scripture and in Jesus Christ. This ought to shake us, it ought
to challenge us, it ought to cause us to wonder just what we believe and
practice.
Does it?
“Since the
ascension, Jesus Christ’s place on earth has been taken by his body, the
church. The church is the present Christ himself.”
Is this how your
congregation sees itself?
Is it how the
members of your congregation treat one another?
Is it how your
congregation relates to other groups of Christians?
Is it how your
congregation relates to the world?
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