Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (11)

 

 

“Through the Holy Spirit, the crucified and risen Christ exists as the church-community, as the “new human being.” For Christ truly is and eternally remains the incarnate one, and the new humanity truly is his body. Just as the fullness of the godhead became incarnate in him and dwelled in him, so are Christian believers filled with Christ (Col. 2:9; Eph. 3:19). Indeed, they themselves are that divine fulness by being his body, and yet it is Christ alone who fills all in all” (page 200).

 

I will add Ephesians 1:23 to Bonhoeffer’s passages, I’ll quote it along with Ephesians 1:22 which Bonhoeffer references in the following paragraph on page 200:

 

“And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

 

Then Bonhoeffer writes, “The unity between Christ and his body, the church, demands that we at the same time recognize Christ’s lordship over his body. This is why Paul, in developing further the concept of the body, calls Christ the head of the body (Eph. 1:22; Col. 1:18; 2:19). The distinction is clearly preserved; Christ is the Lord” (page 200).

 

Do we see what Bonhoeffer has been saying? Do we hear what Bonhoeffer is saying being taught in our churches? Are we and our congregations and movements and denominations and institutions living out the Biblical truth expressed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

 

Of course the answer is “No.” Hopefully there are exceptions, hopefully there are individuals who are attempting to be faithful to the Biblical picture of the Body of Christ, the Church, the Temple, the Bride; hopefully there are pastors who are trying to bring their flocks into a Biblical understanding and practice of the Body of Christ, organic unity with Jesus Christ and with His People.

 

The barrier to such vision and practice seems insurmountable. Does this mean we don’t try? Does this mean that we do not ask God for grace to be microcosms of the reality of Christ the Body? Does this mean that we do not strive to serve our brethren as best we can, by God’s grace, even if they reject us and think us a bit strange, or worse, even if they denounce us?

 

I think we have no alternative but to be faithful to the heavenly vision, to be faithful to Christ the Head and Christ the Body and Christ the Whole. I do not see how we can participate in discipleship and do any less – nor did Bonhoeffer, nor did Paul.

 

With Paul, even though so many had rejected him by the time he wrote 2 Timothy, he continued to “Endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen” (2 Tim. 2:10). With Bonhoeffer, even though much of the professing church in Germany rejected him, he continued to train others to be pastors, to strengthen pastors, to equip the Church for what she was experiencing (whether the professing church realized it or not), and to do what he could to help the church recover when darkness should lift from the German people by his writing and teaching.

 

When we read Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship, we do him and ourselves a terrible disservice if we only consider and teach the first half, which focuses on the individual. Individual discipleship must lead to Part II, The Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship. In fact, we really can’t have one without the other. We learn discipleship within the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ grows as our discipleship grows, for our discipleship consists not only of communion with the Head, but with His Body (1 John 1:3; Eph. 4:15-16).

 

We see this pattern in Paul’s letter to the Romans; chapters 1 – 8 speak to us as individuals, chapters 9 – 16 as the Body of Christ. In Ephesians we see the individual in 1:1 – 2:10, beyond 2:10 we see the unfolding of the Body of Christ, the Living Temple of God.

 

As with so many things, perhaps our recovery of the truth of the Body of Christ and living as the Body of Christ begins with an acknowledgement that there is a wide and deep chasm between what the Bible teaches us and what we believe and practice. Is recovery even possible?

 

Is it possible that institutions and denominations and movements will acknowledge that they have not been faithful to Christ and His Word? Is it possible that pastors and congregational leaders will acknowledge that they have missed seeing the Body of Christ, missed seeing their people as the saints of God in Christ, missed viewing other Christians in their own towns and cities and regions as the Body of Christ?

 

Perhaps it begins with what Bonhoeffer wrote on page 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 in a unique sense” (italics mine).

 

If we do not begin to think and speak differently, it is unlikely that we will live differently. Old habits are difficult to change, old ways of thinking hard to overcome, especially when the new ways go against the popular grain, when they are invisible to most people and make no sense to the masses and can even be perceived as a threat.

 

Are we able to teach our people to be more than who they are?

 

If we are Baptists, can we teach our people to be more than Baptists, can we teach them to be Christ’s Body? If we are Presbyterians or Pentecostals or Methodists, can we teach our people to be more than our denominations and traditions, can we teach them to be the Body of Christ and to serve the Body of Christ? If we identify as Reformed, Pentecostal, Wesleyan, Anglican, or Lutheran, can we learn to be more than what we are, can we learn to see the Body of Christ, to serve the Body of Christ, to live as the Body of Christ?

 

Is Jesus Christ truly our Head? Or is Jesus Christ actually a figurehead?

 

If Jesus is our Head, then what warrant do we have to propagate anything less than what the Bible teaches us is the Temple of the Living God, and to seek anything less than the fulfillment of Christ’s prayer that we be one as the Trinity is One? (see John 17).

 

Perhaps it must begin with, as Bonhoeffer writes, seeing and thinking and speaking of the church not as an institution, but as a person with a body, a very unique body.

 

How have you thought of the church?

 

How might you begin to think of the church in a Biblical way?