We now proceed to consider the nature of
the corporate life of the Church, and we want to note
first of all one or two quite elementary facts which,
nevertheless, always carry a freshness of meaning to
those who are spiritually alive to the Lord, and the
first simple truth is this, that the term, the
designation "The Body of Christ," is peculiar
to the Apostle Paul. Other designations of the Church are
found before Paul's day and in other parts of the
Scriptures outside of the writings of Paul, but the
title, "The Body of Christ," "The
Body," "The Church, which is His Body," is
peculiar to Paul. The Church was not a new idea at all.
The Lord's people were familiar with that title. The Lord
Jesus had spoken of His Church to the Apostles. There was
nothing new in that, but when you come to speak of that
Church as "The Body of Christ," it is an
entirely new idea, a new thought, a new conception
bringing with it an entirely new presentation of the
nature of this thing. It says very emphatically and
forcefully and clearly that the Church, as regarded by
God, is not just a community; it is not a congregation,
it is not something denominational, or
interdenominational, or even undenominational.
And yet you may use the term
"Church" and have a mentality encircling that
term which conceives of the Church as a community of
Christian people, a Christian society, a company of
people on the earth of mutual interest in the things of
Christ. But this designation carries things into an
altogether different realm. It is a body. Not a body of
people, but that which is represented and illustrated by
the physical body of a man. I do not mean that the Church
is the physical body of Christ, do not misunderstand, but
that the physical body of a man is taken as an
illustration of what the Church is. (Christ still has His
own personal and separate being and spiritual body in
glory).
No Such Thing As A Local
"Body"
Now another factor in the truth of the
Body of Christ is that there is no such thing as a local
body. There are local churches, or local assemblies, but
there is no such thing as a local Body. That is made
clear in one passage at least when rightly translated - 1
Corinthians 12:27 - where the unfortunate translation of
some of our versions is "Ye are the body of
Christ." In the Greek there is no article there, it
does not say, "Ye are the body of Christ," but
"Ye are Christ's body." That gives an entirely
different complexion to the local assembly. This word
spoken to a local company of believers at Corinth most
clearly implies that the part is the whole in
implication, that the local body is the whole in
representation, the whole body is represented by that
local company. Now that need not be so in the case of
local assemblies or local churches, but you cannot
localize the Body of Christ in that way. That is, you
cannot cut off so many members of a physical frame and
put them in one corner and call that the body. Wherever
members of Christ are, there in implication and
representation the whole Body of Christ is, and the
Lord's mind is that every local company shall be a living
representation of the whole Body, a microcosm of the
whole Body of Christ. What is true of the whole Body has
got to be true there, because they are not a detached
company, not an isolated or separated assembly, there by
implication the whole Body is. That embraces - whether
you are able to grasp it or not - all the great elements
and factors of the Body of Christ.
It says quite clearly that nothing in the
thought of God is local, departmental, separate or
independent. In the thought of God everything to do with
His Church is universal, relative, interdependent; the
Church is one. It is saying that you are so vitally
related to other believers that you are the Body of
Christ in implication, in effect, in nature. It declares
most emphatically that the part is the whole in the
thought of God, and is to be regarded as the whole. Let
us put it this way.
Here are we in this place in this part of
this city, a company of the Lord's people, and vitally
related to this company here is the whole Body of Christ.
We are not a detached or separate company, an independent
assembly, we are in a living, functioning spiritual union
with every other member of the Body of Christ in this
whole world wherever they may be. France, Switzerland,
Germany, Poland, America, Africa, China, India, etc.,
they are all here in the relativity of the Body of
Christ, and all involved in our gathering together. We
have to see that more fully presently, but when once that
principle is spiritually apprehended then we have got our
feet on the way of our universal ministry. Whenever we
gather together, even as two or three, the whole Body is
gathered with us in the heavenlies and is affected by our
gathering together. It is tremendous to think that two or
three of the children of God gathered in one place
anywhere, in living touch with the Head, are affecting
and can affect, the whole Body of Christ; every member,
however many millions there may be, so that they are in
effect the Body of Christ.
Now how does that come to you? Does it
reach you, or is it so familiar that you say that you
know all about that? It is necessary to place fresh
emphasis upon it from time to time.
The Body - Christ's Complement
Now further, the Church as the Body is the
complement and fullness of Christ, associated with Him as
Head over all things, the complement of Christ,
completion of Christ, the fullness of Christ. We are in
Ephesians, you know, and here the Church, the Body is
"the fullness of Him that filleth all in all,"
the Church is said to be the fullness of Him. Associated
with Him as Head over all things. To illustrate: while
unrevealed, while still a mystery held from the ages and
generations, the Body truth in principle is contained in
the Word right from the beginning. It had never been
specifically unveiled or mentioned but it is there.
Truths are eternal, and from the very beginning you have
a principle of the Body represented and illustrated in
the case of Adam and Eve. The woman was taken out of the
man and then brought to the man to complete him, and that
is the Church, that is the Body of Christ; taken out of
Christ and then brought to Christ to complete Him. His
completion, His complement unto His fullness associated
with Him as Head. "As the man is the head of the
woman so Christ is the Head of the Church,"
associated with Him as Head over all things. We will take
that up again presently for its practical outworking.
Let us note still further, the Word of the
Lord reveals the Church as complete in the mind of God at
any given time. This is never dealt with in tenses in the
Word of God, that is, past, present and future. It is
always complete in the present tense, in the mind of God.
The Lord never talks about the Church when it will be
complete; the Lord never talks about the completing of
the Church in a future time. You have such phrases as
these, "The whole Body," that is a declaration
now, as though in Paul's day, when he wrote that phrase,
the Body was complete; he is speaking NOW about
the whole Body. "All the Body fitly framed,"
speaking in his own day. You have either got to decide
that it was only the saints in Paul's day who made up the
Body of Christ, or ruling that out and admitting
believers after Paul's day, you have to come to this
conclusion that in the thought of God as expressed by the
Holy Spirit in these words the Body is complete in any
given time. That takes you back to the Ephesian word to
the "before times eternal" when God completed
the Body in His own mind, "whom He foreknew, He
predestinated." Back there in eternity the thing was
complete, and that completeness IN THE MIND of God
exists at any time and every time.
Then we go on to note that the Body is for
the display of Christ. Just as a man expresses himself
through his body, so Christ expresses Himself through His
Body, and the Body's supreme and all inclusive function
is for the display of Christ.
The Holy Spirit: The Unifying Factor In
The Body
Now as to the great unifying factor in the
Body of Christ. What is the unifying factor in the Body
of Christ? It is not a mutual acceptance of certain
truths presented. That does not constitute the Body of
Christ. It is not that we all agree to believe certain
doctrines. The unifying factor of the Body of Christ is
the Holy Spirit. "We were all baptized in one Spirit
into one Body" (I Cor. 12:13). "There is one
Body and one Spirit" (Eph. 4:4). Individually we
have each a spirit, a separate spirit. The Body of Christ
has only one Spirit and that is the factor which makes
the Body one.
Now you can clearly and immediately see
how, out of that, many practical issues proceed. The
necessity, for instance, for receiving the Holy Spirit.
That is very elementary, I know, but it is a foundational
fact. Our "Churchmanship" is tested on that
truth. Have we received the Holy Spirit? But then the
fact is not enough, the function is necessary; and for
the Body to function, it is not only necessary that the
members should receive the Holy Spirit, but that the Holy
Spirit should have His full place in every member. His
full place! The Body can only function when the Spirit
has His full place, His complete place given Him in each
member.
Now the order of things, not
chronologically but spiritually, is very clear in the
arrangement of the New Testament. Romans precedes
Corinthians, and Corinthians precedes Ephesians, and
necessarily so. Romans brings in the Cross specifically
for the setting aside of the natural man. Corinthians has
as its objective, its stress, its note, the place of
Christ in absolute Lordship. All the trouble at Corinth
was because the Lord Jesus was not in His place as
Sovereign Head, as Lord; and the word of the Apostle is
"We proclaim Christ Jesus as Lord." They were
making men lords - Paul, Apollos, Peter; they were
putting men in the place of the Lord Jesus. They were
putting things in the place of the Lord Jesus, even the
spirituals, they were not giving Him His right place as
absolute Sovereign Head, and the letter was brought in
for that purpose. Romans to set aside the natural man,
Corinthians to bring Christ into His place as Lord; then
Ephesians can come in and you have, as constructed upon
those two principles - the natural man set aside, the
Lord Jesus established as Lord - the Body presented and
functioning upon that two-fold basis.
You cannot have an expression of the Body
of Christ until the natural man has been set aside. The
uprising of the natural man in any way or measure
violates the whole Body of Christ, and is a positive
antagonism to the Sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. The
flesh cannot have a place in the Body of Christ if the
Body of Christ is to be what the Lord conceives it should
be. If it is to function, the Lord Jesus must be
absolutely Lord in the case of every believer.
So that is the order, and then, beloved,
the Spirit's method is again revealed in His wisdom in
following that up by Colossians. Chronologically
Colossians comes before, spiritually after, Ephesians.
Colossians is the full inheritance in Christ, the
fullness of God is vested in Christ, He is the sum total
of all the Divine fullness. Colossians is the New
Testament counterpart of the Book of Joshua. Christ is
the inheritance. He is the land of promise flowing with
milk and honey, the land of riches and wealth. He is all
that, and you come into the fullness of Christ as the
Body on the ground of His having become Lord, and the
flesh, the natural man having been set aside. That is the
Body of Christ in its nature. Apply those laws today and
you will get a living expression of what is in Ephesians.
The reason why we have no, or such little, expression of
what is in Ephesians today, the Body mightily functioning
in the heavenlies, is because the natural man has not
been ruled out, because Christ is not in His place as
absolute Lord.
Therefore, what is basic in the first
instance to the Church, the Body of Christ, and to the
revelation of the Body of Christ, is the practical
outworking of the Cross. We shall never, by the Lord, be
led to see the Body of Christ until we have been led to
see Romans, especially Romans 6, until there has been a
revelation to us of the Cross. I do not mean a
presentation of the principle of the Cross, but a
revelation of the Cross. Now probably in quite a number
of cases that has been borne out.
Speaking for one's self, one preached
Romans 6 for years, one preached the message of the Cross
in fullness for years, as truth, as Scripture, and you
could never find a flaw with the doctrine of the Cross as
then preached. But then the practical application of it
had not come about, and the time came when the Lord
confronted one with the implications of Romans 6, and it
was as though one knew nothing of Romans 6 when
confronted with the real meaning of it, for the thing was
so drastic, so terrific that it nearly knocked one off
one's feet, and slew one. Such a difference between the
doctrine of the Cross and the applying of it. When that
was got through and worked in we came to see that the
Lord had included us in the death of Christ, not only as
sinners, but as men with every bit of our natural
equipment, our natural facility, even to preach the
Gospel (which was a natural facility to preach), and all
those things which were employed in Christian service as
our resources, the whole range, intellectual and every
other realm. The Lord brought us to see that all was
included in the death of Christ and that all things have
to be out from Himself in the new creation (that is the
law of the servant of the Lord, as the Lord Jesus Himself
said, "I do nothing of Myself" (John 5:19),
everything now out from God, a life of total dependence
upon Him for everything) when that was applied in a
practical way it meant a tremendous upheaval and for a
time it was death to everything, it was the end.
Now that is true to our experience, but
when that was got through, when that in principle was
established - not that there has been no more of the
Cross applied since, for it is always being applied -
when the Lord had the thing so registered that for
evermore we recognized the necessity for the natural man
to be kept out, then after a while the Lord began to
reveal the great truth of the Body. We had preached on
the Church, which is His Body, for years, had been of an
interdenominational spirit and frame of mind where we
regarded all believers as members of the one Church, the
one great spiritual community, had studied Ephesians most
thoroughly. But when the thing began to break as a
revelation from heaven it was as though we knew nothing
about it at all, and the practical outworking was
tremendous as to cause again another revolution, for the
teaching which before never raised practical issues in
certain realms now began to raise these.
For instance, with the teaching apart from
the revelation, the denominational issue was never raised
at all; when the revelation came it was found impossible
to be a denominationalist. It was not a mental attitude
taken, but one had come into a spiritual position where
one was out of the whole thing and it was a contradiction
to go on in that thing when one was out of it. I am
illustrating, not applying this to you as teaching and
saying that the teaching of the Body of Christ demands
that you shall leave a denomination. The revelation may
put you into another position, but don't you move out on
mere doctrine, or because of what I say. Stay where you
are until you get a revelation which makes it impossible
for you to remain. Revelation raises practical issues
while doctrine may not do so in the same way. We need
more than the apprehension of Bible truth with our
natural minds, for many minds have many different
apprehensions.
We were saying what is foundational to the
Body of Christ is a revelation and application of the
Cross, for when the natural man of the flesh is ruled
out, put aside, smitten, then you see the way is paved
for true spiritual apprehension of the Body of Christ
because the Body of Christ cannot exist and function with
any natural man about. That is the nature of the Body of
Christ. The natural man is put out altogether, so again
let us resay that the revelation of the Body is based
upon A REVELATION and AN APPLICATION of the
Cross. Then the Body becomes the sphere of the Holy
Spirit's activity. The little phrase is in 1 Corinthians
12, "As He wills," He appoints, He gives gifts,
He equips, as He wills, implying the complete liberty,
the unrestricted liberty of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy
Spirit is restricted, in that measure the Body is limited
in its realization of the Divine calling and the
fulfilment of the Divine purpose of its existence. Only
the unrestricted liberty of the Holy Spirit can produce a
right representation and a right functioning and activity
of the Body because the Body is the sphere of the Holy
Spirit's activity.
We have seen that Christ is the Head of
the Body, and that the Holy Spirit has His sphere of
activity in the Body. Now taking the familiar
illustration from the physical body, we know that every
member and ever faculty of this physical body is related
vitally to the head, and functions in relation to the
head, if the body, of course, is in right order.
Throughout the whole of this complex physical system
there is the network of nerves; a tremendously
comprehensive system, linking every needle-point of our
physical frame to the farthest extremities with the head,
so that you register pain from your finger or toe in your
head. Cut your head off and you can injure as many
fingers and toes as you like and you will not feel it!
Everything has its location in the head, all the
sensibilities of the members are registered in the head.
It is possible to take a needle and, if the whole brain
system is understood, to apply the needle-point to any
given part of the brain and put out of action any member
of the body, and leave the others untouched. By an
understanding of that system a needle can be applied to a
certain point in the brain and put the hand, or the foot,
out of operation and leave the other members operating,
this whole thing is so wonderfully gathered up in the
head. Christ is the Head of the Body, all the members are
joined to the Head, all the members are consciously
registered in the Head, have their consciousness by
reason of their relationship to the Head, their
consciousness spiritually, which Paul means when he says,
"We have the mind of Christ" (I Cor. 2:16b).
But what is that nerve system? It is the
Holy Spirit. He is the spiritual nerve system of the
whole Body, linking all with the Head, He is the
consciousness of the Body, He is the One Who brings from
the Head those reactions of the judgments and decisions
of the Head. He is the One Who brings to the Head
everything concerning every member, and so makes the Body
and the Head one complete whole. The Holy Spirit is that
nerve system throughout the whole Body. Now if the Holy
Spirit is arrested, checked, injured in any one member
the completeness of the Body's functioning is at once
hindered, interfered with. That is why I said at the
beginning that any local company is the whole in effect,
that if we, beloved, here, for instance, check the Holy
Spirit, or He is arrested, or if here this member is
injured in relation to the Holy Spirit the whole Body is
affected by that. If the Holy Spirit is checked here, for
instance, in the matter of prayer, the whole Body suffers
in that, not the local company merely; the whole Body. If
the Holy Spirit, on the other hand, has His full way here
the whole Body will reap the benefit. This Body is a
universal thing and its universality is centred in any
local company, the whole is there. How in these bodies of
ours, when they are in proper order, one member affects
the rest! Have the toothache and every bit of your body
suffers with it, it is not long before that abscess in
the tooth has you universally involved! It is true. You
suddenly burn a bit of your body, a small bit, and your
whole body goes through with a shudder.
How true this presentation of the Body is
in the Word of God. "If one member suffer, all the
members suffer with it" (I Cor. 12:26). But that is
not on the earth. I may be going through a very great
deal of suffering without you knowing anything about it
so far as the natural life is concerned, you are not
affected by it, but beloved, there is a realm where if
one member spiritually suffers the whole Body is involved
in that suffering, which shows this Body is a heavenly
thing and its relationships are not natural, they are
spiritual, and that the unifying factor of the Holy
Spirit operates apart from the natural consciousness.
Have you got that? If we neglect our private prayer the
Lord is losing something in His Body far away - His
children on the other side of the world are affected by
our behaviour. To the natural consciousness it is not so,
but the Holy Spirit knows it.
But why always take the negative side, why
not the positive, that the maintenance of a true Holy
Spirit life is always, whether we are conscious of it or
not, to the good of the whole Body of Christ. We do not
live to ourselves, or die to ourselves (Rom. 14:7), but
the maintenance of a true testimony even where other
believers know nothing of the conflict, it may be in a
home or business place, where we are physically out of
touch with all other believers, members of Christ, yet
the maintenance of the testimony there in faithfulness is
in that realm of the Body, the heavenlies, a great
service to the whole Body. That is why the enemy likes,
if he can, to smash a testimony in a home or in a
business, because it is not merely the local situation
which is affected, but because of the universal blow that
he can strike at the very Head, Christ, and we should see
to it that the testimony is not something we try to keep
up in public gatherings, it is involved in our domestic
life, our business life.
Heavenly Relationships Reflected In The
"Body"
This brings us back to the Ephesian letter
again. All the relationships of the believers are to be
on the principle of the one Body. It is not a sweep down
from the heavenlies to the earthlies to bring in
"Husbands love your wives," etc. That is not
coming down to the earthlies, that is saying that
relationships of believers are to be on the principle of
the one Body. Am I a husband, then my attitude,
relationship, conduct to my wife must not be on a human
basis but as a fellow member of the Body of Christ,
realizing that not merely natural interests are involved
but universal interests. In our relationships the whole
Body is bound up. You know quite well that is true. If
husbands and wives become spiritually dislocated as
children of the Lord, there is something in that which
does great harm to the testimony of the Lord, and great
harm to the Lord Himself and is used by the enemy to
become a great adverse spiritual factor over and beyond
that local domestic situation, it registers something in
the spiritual realm which is harmful. And so in all other
relationships; servants to masters, a maid to her
mistress. Not just good Christians as on the earth doing
their service in a good Christian way - earning wages;
not just as an earthly thing, but to regard that master,
that mistress, as a fellow-member of Christ. Not unto
them as men and women but to recognize that bound up with
our service to them is the whole universality of the Body
of Christ.
Paul includes the whole Body in the
relationships of master and servant, mistress and maid,
in principle. That is, I think, most obvious in its
outworking. You get believers who are in these
relationships of masters and mistresses and servants, and
you get some strain between them; beloved, that reaches
far beyond the mere location of it, it reaches out and
affects the Lord's interests in a much wider range than
that.
If only we recognized this as a declared
law of the Body of Christ! It is not a matter of whether
we see it doing the mischief or not, it is whether the
Lord says it is so. The Lord says here as clearly as
anything can be said, that these relationships are not
locked up within the compass of their own operation, but
they do reach out into a great universal expanse of the
heavenly Body and the whole Body of Christ is spiritually
affected by these strains which come into these
relationships.
You see what is involved, you see what a
motive we have in our relationships for keeping them on a
high level. If there comes between those in these
relationships, these strains, these cross-purposes, these
cross-currents, this being offended and upset, this
breach of true love, our attitude must be, not just that
this is a miserable unhappy thing, and the sooner we make
it up the better; our attitude must be, this thing out in
the realm of spiritual intelligences is working against
the glory of Christ, this is working against Him as the
Head because all these relationships are joined so
vitally to the Head; this is working against the Holy
Spirit as the unifying power of the whole Body, this is
doing damage, and therefore, inasmuch as we are so
minutely related to all the members by the Holy Spirit,
what one does must somehow, all beyond our realization or
consciousness, touch Christ, touch the Holy Spirit, and
therefore, all other members. It is doing that. That is
the revelation here, that is the nature of the Body. You
see why we should see to these relationships and lift
them up out of the earthlies. I think that is something
to think more about.
Relativity is the law of the Body of
Christ. Relativity is holding fast the Head; and let us
beware of trying to maintain the Body in its oneness
along the horizontal line. You cannot do it. It is a
hopeless thing, and we shall always be running round and
making apologies. On the horizontal we cannot do it, but
if we hold fast the Head, we shall find our gravitation
is together. We cannot give Christ His place fully and
absolutely and be at cross-purposes with another
believer. Christ must have His place so that we do
everything unto Him, all for Him, all for His sake. We
cannot have an attitude like that and maintain a
grievance with another believer. Holding fast the Head
and everything being unto Him would demand an adjustment
in our relationships and bring it about. We cannot
love the Lord with all our hearts and not love one of
His; that is a contradiction. So that the oneness of
the Body first of all demands that we hold fast the Head.
The Liberty Of The Spirit
There must be the liberty of the Spirit in
us in order to realize the Body and its ministry. I am
coming down to practical questions. There must be
absolute freedom from human organization, ecclesiastical
government, man's control AS SUCH if there is
going to be a full functioning of the Holy Spirit. To get
into a hide-bound religious system, ecclesiastical
control, a human organization of the Church where you
have to preach every so often whether you have anything
to say or not because you are paid to do it is absolutely
against the Holy Spirit. That is not the principle of the
Holy Spirit, and we must be absolutely free from all such
things if the Spirit is going to function freely and we
are going to have ministry in the Holy Spirit.
That is the principle of the Spirit. It
was that that the Jews, the Jewish leaders, were so set
against in the case of the Apostle Paul. He said,
"certain came in to spy out our liberty" (Gal.
2:4). What was it? That he had thrown off the yoke of the
law and the Jewish system and now he was exercising
himself in the universal realm of the Body of Christ,
Gentiles and Jews, just as much the one as the other,
liberty in Christ. He was free from all yokes of
tradition, system, and organization religiously on the
earth, in order to fulfil his ministry of revelation as
the Holy Spirit led him. That is essential to the Body of
Christ. By which I mean that to try to organize the Body
of Christ, the Church, and to try to set a programme for
it and hand it to the Holy Spirit and say, "will you
kindly take the chair and carry out our programme"
(that may seem irreverent, I know, but it is not meant to
be so) is so utterly contrary to the principle here
revealed.
The Body of Christ is a thing emancipated
from the earthly systems; it must be to function. It is
not our forsaking the earthly system because we have
taken hold of certain truths, but our being emancipated.
There is a right place for spiritual government and
subjection in the Church, and the "free lance"
principle is just as wrong as officialism.
But I must come to a close. We will close
on that point. We cannot take up Church membership, and
we cannot take up Church work in the Body of Christ. We
have heard people say they are going to take up Church
work. Those ideas are utterly foreign to the truth of the
Body of Christ. We cannot join the Body of Christ. Take
the physical illustration again, and see how ludicrous it
is for someone else's hand or arm to say that it is
coming to join my body! It is absurd. This is a Church
which we cannot enter into horizontally, we have got to
come into it from heaven, we have to come into it by
birth, not by adhering or accretion. That is the law of
the Body's growth. It is by birth, out from the
heavenlies, and what is true of the relationship, the
membership of the Body of Christ, is true of the
ministry, the work. We cannot take up work or ministry in
the Body of Christ. When we get a true spiritual thing
representing adequately the Lord's mind, people from the
outside cannot come into that and begin to minister. They
have to come into the revelation that is there by the
Holy Spirit and come into that on an experimental basis.
You cannot invite preachers to come and preach. The
fellowship in that ministry is the fellowship of
revelation: that you have come into it on the same
ground, by the same way, you have been born into it from
above, the only basis of Body ministry.
The organized church can do anything it
likes, but in the Body of Christ, no! In its ministry the
thing is essentially coming in from above and not joining
from the outside. So we cannot join the Church in the New
Testament sense, we cannot take up Church work in the New
Testament sense, we have to be an organic part of it, and
the revelation of the truth of the Body has no place for
that system which appoints officers and workers in a kind
of mechanical, official way. You cannot take hold of a
brother and make him an official in the Body of Christ,
you can in an earthly system, but not here. Such must
grow up by a spiritual process, and the ministry is
expressed, grows up, out of the inner life, it is not
official, it is organic.
That opens up a whole realm of truth that
would be profitable, but we will stop there just now, and
ask the Lord to give us the revelation, if we have not
got it, for however much more we may say about it, after
all it will become to us only as teaching, truth,
doctrine, unless the Lord makes it live, gives us the
revelation. But oh, there is such a vast difference
between what is called the Church here, its system, its
methods, its relationships, and this truth that the Body
of Christ is a spiritual, heavenly thing: such a great
difference! This heavenly thing is universal in its range
and in its ministry even though it may be but represented
by a handful in a location; a universal ministry,
something that does not belong to time or space; it is
essentially spiritual and that is heavenly, illimitable.