10.1 The Church His Body
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Having devoted your heart to Father at a deeper level than you have known before and having learned what it means to share with Father the compassion and the power of His Mercy Seat, you now hear Jesus speaking to you more clearly than ever. Love one another in exactly the same way that I love you (John 15:12).
And you see your brothers and sisters in Christ, those people with whom you join together in worship, in a new light. I want to show you what it is you now see. – And He put all under the feet of Jesus and gave Him to be head [that which unites] for the sake of all the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Christ filling all in all, Jesus filling with Himself everything in everyone (Ephesians 1:22-23).
A Many-Membered Body. When you see your brethren gathered together and you with them, you are seeing the Body of the Lord Jesus. You are seeing Jesus living and walking bodily upon this earth.
For just as the body is one, but has many members, yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. Indeed, we also inside of one Spirit were immersed into one body… and have all been made to drink one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many (1 Corinthians 12:12-14).
The Lord Jesus Christ IS a many-membered body, the Church. You are indeed the body of Christ and members of [Him] as a part (1 Corinthians 12:27).
This Same Jesus. Suddenly, knowing Jesus as He is has taken on a further dimension. And of course, if Jesus lives in your heart, then this same Jesus lives in Person in the hearts of your brothers and sisters. If Jesus lives as you, carrying all that you are inside Himself and revealing Himself now through you, then this same Jesus lives as your brothers and sisters, carrying all that they are inside Himself and revealing Himself now through them.
If Christ lives as you, Christ lives as your brother and sister.
You never leave Jesus alive in your own heart, but hearing that Jesus inside your heart whisper to you, “Love one another,” what is happening between you and those with whom you worship?
Love One Another. By speaking “Love one another” out from your heart, even while speaking the same words out from each one of your brothers and sisters’ hearts, Jesus is placing Father God among you as all of your connections together. By speaking “Love one another,” Jesus is taking this word, “The love of God has been shed abroad in your hearts…” and placing that love that is God alone, not just in and out from your own heart, but inside the dynamics of all the relationships between you and all other Christians.
It is this commandment coming out from Jesus as the creative Word of God, bringing all things into existence. “Love one another as I love you,” causes the Church to be the very Body of the Lord Jesus walking this earth.
Refusing Temptation. Before looking at the Body of Christ, who and what it is, let’s consider the temptation of the evil one. When you hear “Love one another,” you do not look for any ability in yourself to “do” such a thing, rather, looking into and out from Jesus, you say, “Let it be to me.”
The serpent teaches “love one another” in this way, however. “You can and should be loving one another, but your human performance tells us that you obviously do NOT love as Jesus loves, loser.” The one who regards the serpent’s logic will never know love but will always be falling short.
But how could we believe love, if we fail to feel and do love?
Christ Is All. Christ is all, FIRST, before anything not Christ could ever vanish away.
Love is God among us. Paul made it clear that doing the actions of love all your life amounts to nothing. God is among us only because we believe in Jesus first, against all sight of the eyes and against all human judgment. And yes, as you feel, think, say, and do things that are unloving, and as you place anything wrongful in your actions into the Lord Jesus and as you place Him into yourself, sharing all that you are in every present moment, something happens.
You see, our faith in Christ is predicated on one absolute rock – that Jesus is, in fact, real, and that He really is what God speaks.
See Jesus Regardless. And so, as you see and speak Jesus as love poured out, as love among you, regardless of your human failures, you see Him as all. And as you see Jesus as all that you are, regardless, something incredible begins to happen.
Never knowing any “falling short of God,” you continue knowing that God is true, that God Himself is love among you, even when you embarrass yourself by doing unloving things, and even while you humble yourself and apologize, something happens in your life. Bit by bit, that which is “not-Christ” fades away until you know it no more. Love is ALL that you know, first; nothing else is true.
A Gathering Together. What is the Church? What is the Body of Christ? First, the Greek word translated “church” is ecclesia, which means a simple gathering together of people. As Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).
Jesus was talking about something more of Himself than His personal union with you, alive in your heart and always and utterly with you in all things. Jesus was talking about what Paul called “the fullness of Christ,” which is the Church. Church is the gathering together of Christ with Christ.
A Literal Body. On the road to Damascus, Saul of Tarsus experienced the complete shattering of everything he thought he knew, with that mighty blow causing him to become “Paul,” or “the little one.” One of the things Jesus said to him, however, took many years to percolate inside until Paul knew what Jesus meant. Jesus said to Paul, “Why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4). Paul was persecuting Christians.
But Paul could not take Jesus’ words metaphorically or symbolically or mystically. To Paul, Jesus was speaking literally; that is, Jesus was telling Paul the truth. It was Jesus Himself, walking this earth in His physical Body, whom Paul was persecuting – the Church.
Jesus as Seed and Plant. Jesus had said, “Unless a grain of wheat is planted into the ground and dies {that is, becomes a plant}, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain {many more seeds just like itself}” (John 12).
There is one Seed of God only, the Lord Jesus. On the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), this same Jesus was planted by God into the earth, into the flesh of His Church. In so doing, the One Seed of God “died,” that is, became something that looks entirely different, the plant of the Church.
A plant IS the seed in plant form, bringing forth many more seeds just like the first. The Church IS the Lord Jesus in earthly form, bringing forth many more sons just like Him.
Inside of Faith. The Church, your local gathering together, you, together with your brothers and sisters with whom you worship, IS the Body of the Lord Jesus walking this earth today. You are the Body of Christ and a member as part of Him.
Now, there is a moment when the many seeds come forth out from that plant to be sons of God together with Jesus, Christ revealed now in all glory through them. That moment is the resurrection of your body. Nonetheless, you do not see or judge your local assembly by outward appearance now as the plant, rather you see and judge all things by faith, that Christ is all that you are together. It is inside of this faith that you love one another.
The Fulness of Christ. Here is how it works. Jesus begins (not a time word, but a source word, all here now), Jesus begins as every Word God speaks entering into your heart through faith to become all that you are. This same Jesus, then, goes forth from you as a Spirit of power, connecting you together with your brothers and sisters, and thus becoming, now, Christ as a many-membered Body, the fullness of Christ, all that Jesus is as Father revealed.
In the next lesson, we will look more at Christ as a connecting Spirit of power. But first know that you, together with your brothers and sisters in Christ ARE – the Church, which is His [physical] body, the fullness of Jesus filling all inside of all.