7. Christ as a Corporate Body

The fullness of Christ is a many-membered body, many moving together as one. And He… gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:22-23).

To be "AS HE IS" means that we are members of one another. We cannot see or know Christ as He is except we walk together as the Church in the relationships of the Holy Spirit. Christ is a corporate body. Although we must begin with Christ as every Word God speaks becoming Christ as the One who lives as us, we cannot end there, but we must proceed through Christ as a Spirit of Power until we live and walk together with one another in all things - Christ as a Corporate Body.

Lesson 7.1 Saved into Church establishes that our salvation is not "to" heaven, but to church. Everything of God and the Bible that Christians place in the "heaven" of their imagination is found for us in reality in the Church of Christ, which is His Body, the fullness of Jesus, now in this age. Thus "working out our salvation" means learning to walk together as one body in love.

Lesson 7.2 What Is a Body? returns to the illustration of a computer and uses the pixels on the screen that create an image to help us understand how we are made one body together by the same Spirit Word in which we live. The lesson also uses the illustration of a swarm as another picture of the Body of Christ moving as one.

Lesson 7.3 Christ the Head dispels the false image of "head" as a separated command center that sends out requirements and expects to be "obeyed." Rather, the head of the body, whether the human body or Christ, is found in every part. The Body of Christ exists by the wondrous reality of Symmorphy, sharing the same will, even when we go different ways.

Lesson 7.4 Christ Revealed shows how the Lord Jesus, and Father through Him, becomes known to all creation only through us, moving together in one as the Body of Christ.

Lesson Pages:

Additional Resources

The assignment for this session is to watch the PBS video The Gathering Swarms. This documentary explores the beauty and awesomeness of flocks of birds and swarms of insects and schools of fish, many individuals, all moving together as one, yet in perfect freedom.

As broken humans have observed these phenomena in the past, they have assumed that, because every honey bee was working only for the good of the hive, there must be some sort of “hive mind” controlling everything, some hidden “command and control.” No there is not. The real “hive mind” is found only in command and control, the hierarchy of power as found in such entities as the army, that is, slavery producing ruin.

As you watch this documentary think of these things. NOTHING forces any individual in any of these swarms to do anything but what that individual WANTS to do entirely inside its own nature and delights. Every swarm is a picture of 100% freedom, individuals doing only what they want to do, but in conjunction with others wanting to do the same, that is, perfect order.

The “Head” of the flock is every individual member doing what it wishes. And every member wishes to do something together with nearby members. Yet amazingly, the whole flock moves together as one.
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This documentary is available on YouTube.



Or you can get the same thing on Amazon:

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