Jesus’ invitation is to “enter the kingdom of God.” Practically, this means that we are saved out of our isolation and alienation and into the community of God’s people. As C. S. Lewis points out in his classic, Mere Christianity, as Christians are “united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another …” their life together becomes “the one really adequate instrument for learning about God…” (Emphasis mine.)
Recall that the Great Commission given by Jesus was to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit …” (Matt. 28:19, ESV). Jesus is stressing the conversion of individuals through relationships (i.e., make disciples) followed by their being joined to the body of Christ through baptism. There is a “corporateness” to the kingdom message.
Paul stresses that the Gentiles who were once alienated from “the commonwealth of Israel” have been brought near “by the blood of Christ” that “he might create in himself one new man [or humanity] in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross” (Eph. 2:12–15, ESV). Again, there is a corporate sense to God’s redemptive plan that carries forward from national Israel to form a new covenant people (the church) out of both the Jew and Gentile into the new Israel.
In Ephesians 5:30 Paul writes we are “members of his body.” However, in individualized Western culture, we hear Paul’s teaching about our being members of Christ in precisely the wrong way. For many Westerners a member is a person who merely belongs to something like a country club or a political party. The member in this sense is merely an individual who happens to have voluntarily joined the organization. As Americans, we think we posses the rights to our membership and thus we offer it only to those institutions that we think are deserving. This might explain why we are nation of church-hoppers and shoppers!
But Paul uses member in an organic sense. We are members of Christ in the same way that the eye, ear, hand, and foot are members of the body. At the conclusion of Ephesians chapter two Paul writes, “Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (20–22, ESV). The emphasis is on the corporate nature of God’s redemptive plan. We together are the temple of the Holy Spirit, not “I’m a temple” and “you’re a temple” and so on.
Also, this community is not merely the social gathering of a people with common values-but rather a people who display proof of God’s redemptive work in the world. In other words, we are intended to bear witness to Christ’s kingdom come into the world. And this proof or witness flows forth from converted individuals whose transformation is formed and authenticated through their interactions with each other.
World
Reevangelizing the Church: The body of Christ
By: S. Michael Craven
Friday, 3 July 2009, 16:12 (IST)
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