5. Functional Union
"For even as we
have many members in one body, and all the members have
not the same office: so we, who are many, are one body in
Christ, and severally members one of another" (Rom.
12:4,5).
"For as the
body is one, and hath many members, and all the members
of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were
all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one
member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not
the hand, I am not of the body; it is not therefore not
of the body. And if the ear shall say, Because I am not
the eye, I am not of the body; it is not therefore not of
the body. If the whole body were an eye, where were the
hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the
smelling? But now hath God set the members each one of
them in the body, even as it pleased him. And if they
were all one member, where were the body? But now they
are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to
the hand, I have no need of thee: or again the head to
the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much rather, those
members of the body which seem to be more feeble are
necessary: and those parts of the body, which we think to
be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant
honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant
comeliness; whereas our comely parts have no need: but
God tempered the body together, giving more abundant
honour to that part which lacked, that there should be no
schism in the body; but that the members should have the
same care one for another. And whether one member
suffereth all the members suffer with it; or one member
is honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are
the body of Christ, and severally members thereof'"
(1 Cor. 12:12-27).
"...His body,
the fullness of him that filleth all in all"
(Ephesians 1:23).
"That he...
might reconcile them both in one body unto God"
(Ephesians 2:15,16).
"...For the
perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering,
unto the building up of the body of Christ"
(Ephesians 4:12).
"Christ... from
whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through
that which every joint supplieth... maketh...
increase" (Ephesians 4:15,16).
"He is the head
of the body, the church" (Col. 1:18).
"For the
husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the
head of the church, being himself the saviour of the
body" (Ephesians 5:23).
"We are members
of his body" (Ephesians 5:30).
We continue with our
consideration of this great and many-sided revelation of
union with Christ. We come now to the fifth aspect of
union with Christ, which we are calling Functional Union:
that is, as a body, with head and members.
Inclusive
Function: Expressing the Personality - Christ
I am going to begin
with the inclusive function of the Body of Christ. That
function is the expressing of the personality of
the Body, which is Christ. The Body of Christ, the Church
as the Body of Christ, does not exist for
self-expression. It does not exist for any other purpose
at all than that of expressing the inward personality,
the personality dwelling within the Body, that is,
Christ. We never rightly speak of a corpse as a man. We
can speak of it as the body of a man, but never as a man.
The man is not there. His body may be there. We may, on
the other hand, speak of a living body as a man, but we
know quite well that the body, even though it is
animated, is not the man, or is at most only a small part
of him. The body is only the vehicle or vessel for the
expression and activity of the man. The real man is what
is inside the body.
So it is
with the Body of Christ. We discriminate between Himself
and His Body and yet we identify them: that is, we
identify Him with His Body, and in a sense we identify
His Body with Him, and yet there remains that difference.
It is important to keep this in mind. Christ is not
merged into something called His Body and His own
personality lost. He remains the personality of His Body.
There may be the framework without the personality, just
as there can be the personality without the Body; but -
and this is the teaching concerning the Church as His
Body - for all practical purposes the two are one. That
is, Christ demands His Body, and the Body demands Him.
The Body is dominated by Him in order that, according to
one passage we have just read, it may be His
completeness, "the fullness of him that filleth all
in all."
So, then,
the Body has as its function two main things. One is to LOCATE
the person or the personality, to bring Christ where
the Body is, so that, where the Body is, there Christ
should be. He has decided and chosen so to bind Himself
up with His Body, that that Body, the Church, should be
the place where He is found; that, in the minimum of
representation - two members - it should bring Him into
any place, that by it He should be able to come into any
location or situation. One purpose of the Body, then, is
to locate Christ.
Secondly,
its function is to express the personality, to be the
means, the vessel, wherein and whereby He can express
Himself, make Himself known - bring people to see the
Lord, to know the Lord, to understand the Lord. That is
quite simple, but it is quite challenging.
There are
several matters connected with this. Let us look in the
first place at some things of relative or secondary
account. It is possible to exaggerate the Body. That is
sometimes done in the physical, human realm! Such an
assertiveness, such an elaboration, such an
aggrandizement, such an adornment and decoration of the
external, the body, the fabric - to the hiding of the
personality - so that the thing which impresses is the
form, the pageantry, the external, not the presence of
the Lord. It is that which touches the senses of men, so
that their sight is taken up and their human natural
senses of perception are occupied with the externals of
the Church and often with the people themselves making an
impression, and the Lord Himself is not to be found. It
is possible to exaggerate the body; and apart from that -
possibly exaggerated - observation, in many other ways we
can bring the TECHNIQUE of the Church, of the Body
of Christ, how it must be done and so on, so much into
view, that all this is occupying the attention instead of
the Lord Himself. The very teaching can obscure, if we
are not very careful. Unless the Lord, the personality
within, transcends all the means employed, then there is
something wrong and we had better reconsider our means.
In the
next place, it is possible to make the body ARTIFICIAL
- now I am on very thin ice! - by titivating and
decorating and painting. And what is it all about? It is
an attempt to create personality where it is felt to be
lacking. Forgive me if this makes any reader feel
uncomfortable! But that is its underlying object - to
make an impression, to carry weight, to give a sense of
personality, or to make up some conscious lack. It is
possible to be so occupied with this elaboration in
connection with the Church in order to make an
impression. How much of it, indeed, is already being done
by the organized Church, with this object in view. All
sorts of things are being put on, taken on, employed, all
the paint and gilt and tinsel, all the artificial, in
order to try to overcome this sense of a lack of impact,
in order to make an impression because the impression is
not there naturally; and it is quite possible to make the
Body of Christ artificial, and its registration an
artificial one, which will wear off unless you put more
paint on and still more. You have to keep it going or it
will fade out. It has to be done every morning!
On the
other hand, it is possible to underestimate and be
careless about the body, and that is equally evil. To be
careless, slovenly, shabby in your bodily presence
dishonors the personality, it takes something from the
man, it degrades him. That could be applied in many ways.
We make the observation as we go on that we must honor
the Body of Christ. We are under obligation to keep the
Body in respect for the sake of the One who is inside.
While I speak, of course, of the fellowship of the Lord's
people - the mutual honoring and respecting and helping
and trying to elevate the standard of spiritual life;
keeping things from becoming spiritually shabby and
threadbare and down at heel, it does have - and forgive
the somewhat mundane application - it does have an
application to our personal presence, as to whether we,
as Christians, in our personal appearance are really
discrediting our Lord, by carelessness in habits or in
dress, in behavior or manners. These things let the Lord
down. As Christians we ought to be far above them. Now I
am not suggesting to you that you at once go and begin to
elaborate your personal adornments, but I do say that
Christ deserves to be honored by the body and in the
body, and it is possible to sin against Christ by
carelessness with regard to the body. I would like to
follow that more closely in our mutual care of one
another - what the Word calls "provoking one another
to good works," and "washing one another's
feet"; that is, helping one another to keep from the
earth, to keep out of touch with the low level of this
world.
Functional
Relatedness
We turn
now to look at some things of primary account. The things
that we have just been considering are perhaps only
relatively important but there are also the greater
things, the things of primary account for the full
expression of the personality. I am using that word
deliberately, for the time being, instead of Christ,
because you will get the point better, I think, if I do
so. For the full expression of the personality, which is
Christ, there must be first of all a body, and a body, as
we have read in 1 Cor. 12, is not so many individual
scattered members. The body is not so many disconnected
or unconnected members. The Body of Christ is the
fellowship of believers, in the Holy Spirit, in a very
definite, conscious relatedness, involving an inward
registration and recognition that we are related to all
the Lord's people, that locality in this matter is not
the final criterion, that we are related to the Lord's
people everywhere. That is, indeed, most definitely
emphasized in the New Testament as an absolute necessity
for the full expression of Christ. The full expression of
Christ cannot come through unrelated individual
believers. There may be some small, some partial
expression of Christ in such, but fullness requires
relatedness, and I challenge you on this matter. It is
open to proof and it is constantly demonstrated. Your
measure of Christ depends upon your relatedness. You will
never get beyond a certain small degree of the expression
of Christ in isolation, in separation, in independence,
in apartness. The increase of your measure of the
expression of Christ demands that you are in vital union
with other members of His Body. I cannot be too emphatic
about that, because I see everywhere the spiritual
limitations and even the spiritual ravages resulting from
the loss of that great reality. The Body must exist;
there must be relatedness. And not just as an abstract
thing; it must be real, it must be conscious, it must be
deliberate, it must be a part of the very life. We know
it - and if we do not know it, Satan knows it - but the
Lord knows it.
Interrelatedness
And then
there must be interrelatedness. Interrelatedness is
essential to the full expression of this union, this
fellowship, this relatedness; there must be a working
together, there must be a mutual consideration with a
view to helping one another, definitely helping one
another. We are members not only of Christ - we have read
that twice already - but "severally one of
another." That is interrelatedness, and it is the
very practical aspect of the Body of Christ that there is
mutual support and mutual helpfulness, and that we are
really laying ourselves out for the good of other members
of the Body of Christ. That is the only way of the
fullness of His expression. I said this is subject to
test, to proof. You will find that your measure of Christ
increases when you go to help another member of Christ;
when you consider the need of other members of the Body
and do what you can to meet it, Christ is coming out in
fuller expression in your own life. If you are wrapped up
in yourself, circling around yourself, occupied with
yourself, nursing your own grievances and sufferings and
trials and difficulties, and so becoming more and more
isolated and imprisoned within yourself, your measure of
Christ is diminishing all the time. It is that outward
movement to His own that means spiritual increase to the
one who makes it. It is necessary, it is essential, for
the full expression of the personality. The New Testament
is largely constructed upon that truth.
Interdependence
And in the
next place, interdependence. It is only another phase of
the same thing. This brings in a general spirit of
meekness. One member cannot say to another, "I have
no need of you." It is not, perhaps, likely that you
would say that in so many words. It may have been said in
Corinth. It does seem as though something like that was
going on there, and those actual words may have been used
by some about others. "We can do without you!"
"You do not count!" But it is not likely that
spiritual people would use those actual phrases. Yet we
act them. We behave like that too often. It is one of the
lessons that we have got to learn. We really must
consider this matter - that somehow or other the members
which are least honorable are necessary. Somehow or
other, those whom we would discount are necessary. It may
be difficult sometimes to see how they are necessary. At
any rate, it is to be an attitude. Can the Lord do
without that one? Does not all the grace of God in
salvation and in glorification come down to that least
one? And am I not the least one, after all? Do we feel we
are more important than others, and that we therefore
merit the grace of God more than some others do? You see,
the whole question of meekness arises. Interdependence
means that somehow we need one another. That is true, and
that is a necessary basis for the full expression of
Christ - mutual recognition, mutual honoring; so that we
take the attitude, "Now, this child of God, with all
the faults and weaknesses, cannot be despised, cannot be
cut off as of no account. Somewhere they fit into the
whole in the realm of the Spirit, and the measure of
Christ is increased." In that way we try to make the
most of the least. There must be an acceptance of the
fact of the Body.
Functional
Constitution and Appointment
Then we
must accept, definitely accept, the fact of the
constitutional function of each member: that is, that
each member, if really a member of Christ - and so
possessing the indwelling Holy Spirit - each member, by
the Holy Spirit, is in some way constituted with a
function. Now, we must take that to ourselves. You may
feel that you have not any place or function; you have
always been trying to find out what it is, but you have
never discovered it. How many people have come to me and
said something like this - "Do you really believe
that I represent some function in the Body of Christ? I
wish you would tell me what it is!" I will answer
that in another way. I am saying that we must accept the
fact as stated in the Word of God, that, if this is not
just some picture, some illustration, this figure of the
body; if it is a reality, if the body is more than a
metaphor, if it is a living reality and the Church is
constituted on the very principles of the physical body
of a man, as undoubtedly it is, if that is true, then
these facts hold good, they are facts and we have got to
accept the facts.
Now you
can theorize about the functions of your body, if you
like, but you will sooner or later have to accept the
facts of it: they are facts. And so are these things that
I am mentioning. We have to accept the fact that as
members of Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we are
constituted with a function in the Body of Christ and we
have got to function. We have to recognize that we are
there to function, not to be parasites or passengers, but
to fulfil vital functions in the Body of Christ. If we
accept the fact, and adjust ourselves to the fact, the
Holy Spirit can do things; but if we become passive, if
we sit down and decide that we do not count for anything
and therefore what is the good of it - today we are eggs,
tomorrow we are feather-dusters! - if we adopt that kind
of attitude, the Holy Spirit will not do anything. The
Holy Spirit says, Now then, on your feet and give Me an
opportunity; take a positive attitude toward this
reality, this truth, that you are a member of Christ's
Body and that He has no paralyzed members.
That
means, of course, more than the acceptance of the fact of
our position in the Body and of our having a function in
the Body. It means the acceptance of our RESPONSIBILITY,
that we regard ourselves as responsible people in the
Body of Christ, that we take responsibility for the
expression of Christ - not personal importance,
assertiveness, self-realization, but the expression of
Christ. I am here as a member of a Body, the function of
which is to express the indwelling personality, which is
Christ. That is a serious responsibility, a solemn charge
and obligation, as well as a privilege. We must take this
up. Why am I joined to Christ? Why am I a member of
Christ's Body? For such I am if I am in Christ. Why am I
in that position? For no other and no lesser purpose than
to be the vehicle of the expression of Christ, and if I
am not doing that I am contradicting the very meaning of
my union with Christ. We have to take responsibility over
it. Every day we have to feel responsible about this
matter of the expression of Christ. Of course, that will
come down to many things. We slip up, we make mistakes;
we speak a wrong thing, or a right thing in a wrong way;
somehow or other we default; and at once we say,
"That is not Christ, I must put that right; that has
made a false impression, that has dishonored my Lord, let
me clear that up." That is taking responsibility.
There will be many small things like that - though
nothing is truly small in the Body of Christ; and we
could speak of many other things.
Unconscious
Functioning a Sign of Health
Now in a
healthy body all this exists very largely unconsciously.
Coming back to what I said, asking, What is my function?
- your trouble will be that you will not know. In a
healthy body, everything happens without your being
conscious of it. You do not mentally reason out, work out
and think and decide when you are going to take the next
breath. You just do it. You never thought anything about
it. That is going on in your body if you are healthy. It
is all functioning so largely unconsciously. There is an
unconscious sense in our physical system. It registers
before we register. When we are pulled up by some
symptom, some feeling, we begin to realize that something
has gone wrong physically. But the system registered that
before we were conscious of it. It is only bringing us to
recognize what it has already recognized. That is going
on all the time. In a healthy body there is no
self-occupation with - What am I, who am I, where am I,
what is my function? And when the Body of Christ is
healthy, there is a spontaneous expression of Christ. It
just happens, and it is most healthy when it is like that
- indeed it is only healthy when it is like that. When
people are self-conscious, when people are letting you
know that they are trying to do something for the Lord -
there is something wrong there. That is the Body occupied
with itself instead of with the Lord. If we are really
occupied with the Lord, a very great deal of this
self-occupation disappears. Do not worry as to what your
function is. You live in union with the Lord and you will
function. You may not be able to see what it is that
represents your value, but it will be there; you may not
be able to see how it is that you are serving the purpose
of the Body, but it will be served. Is it not true that
we have known those who have felt themselves the poorest,
the weakest, the most foolish, and we have found a
fragrance of Christ, a beautiful fragrance of Christ, in
that life, and they were all the time so troubled because
they did not feel they were any good at all? We have met
Christ. It is quite a healthy state to be in - far better
than the opposite. There is an unconscious registration
going on.
And when
there is this unconscious registration, if anything does
go wrong, what has been registered in the spirit within
begins to make itself felt outwardly, and we become aware
of the symptoms. We know there is something wrong. It has
come up somewhere from the depths; something is not
right. What I am saying is that there is a fact of things
before there is an understanding of things. Before there
is a mental apprehension, there is a fact, the fact of
function before we understand. We said in an earlier
chapter in this series that sometimes there can be a true
living, beautiful expression of the real meaning of the
Body of Christ without any of the teaching or the
technique. That does not mean that teaching becomes
unnecessary; but the right order is that the thing should
be there first, and that you should come to something
more by understanding what is there: whereas if you put
it the other way and get all the teaching and technique
and then try to get reality, it does not work - it is the
wrong way round.
Christ's
Headship
I am going to close
with this, the key to all - and there is a great deal
more than I have said: you know how much we could say
about the Body of Christ and its function, it is just
full of wonderful Divine meaning - but the key to all is
Christ's Headship expressed in every member, in every
part. There is a sense in which our heads, physically,
naturally can be said to be present in every part of a
healthy body. You can take the finest point and touch any
part of the body to the farthest extremity - and how do
you sense it? you know it in your head, you register it
there. In a healthy body, the head, if it is free to
function and is really functioning, is in touch with, and
as it were represented in, every part. In the same way
the Headship of Christ - His absolute Headship, Lordship,
sovereignty, call it what you will - being expressed in
any and every part of the Body and in every function, is
the key to everything.
This means, of course,
simply that every one of us, howsoever many we be, must
be immediately and utterly under the absolute Lordship of
Jesus Christ if the foregoing is to be true. The
expression of Christ demands the Lordship of Christ, the
manifestation of Christ demands that He have His place as
Head in every part.
Now do take that as the
sum of everything; but do remember, do believe it - for
you are going to prove it - you are going out or you are
going on, you are going down or you are going up; we are
all either going to make spiritual progress or we are
going to retrogress. There is no standing still in this.
We are on a slippery slope, and the only way is to keep
going up or else we shall go down, and it is going to be
like that all the way. Have no mistake about it. We are
not just going to be stationary. If we do not go on we
are going to lose ground. It is a fact which is borne out
by the experience of every one of us, that we just CANNOT
cease to be positive. It is a most perilous thing to
cease to be positive in the Christian life. Lack of
fervency of spirit uncovers us, it takes our defenses
away, and we shall be steadily undone, steadily
disintegrated, steadily made to lose out. This matter of
the Body of Christ as a living organism, with relatedness
and interrelatedness and interdependence, is no theory or
technique. These are vital relationships connected with
the increase of spiritual life, the enlargement of the
expression of Christ, the justification of our very
existence. But they are necessary things. You let your
fellowship with the Lord's people suffer and you let your
own spiritual life suffer. If you in any way become
detached and isolated in spirit, in mind, in action, you
cut the very vitals of your own spiritual life. It is
like that. This functional union with Christ in His Body
is essential. It is essential to Him, for the fulfillment
of His purpose. It is essential to us in the fulfillment
of our very life as Christians.