The Great Commission and the Life of the Body of Christ
By Jay Wegter
The true Church is the Body of Christ. He built it; He owns it; He is its life; He rules it by His infallible Word—directing and empowering it by His Spirit. The unbiblical ‘attraction model’ makes Christ’s master plan of making disciples to be optional.
As if the supreme problem facing the church is how to devise a service so attractive the people cannot stay away. The attraction model forgoes the power of deep community in favor of marketing. But that results in filling pews with folks who consume what is offered—they are not there because Jesus is there (through deep community). Thus, today’s church growth methods seldom rise above ‘cloning through technique’. How are you ‘doing church’? What you do and how you do it IS your functional ecclesiology (Charles Jefferson,
The Minister as Shepherd , p. 77).
Care is the catalyst for a congregation’s spiritual growth. The church’s spiritual growth catalyst is soul care.
Body life is expressed through the mutual edification of the members of the body. That is
koinonia.
Thus, the fellowship of the church exists to know each other closely enough to edify, build up, bear burdens; confess faults; rebuke; exhort; admonish; teach, minister (Col 1:28-29). Lay shepherding helps grow a church into a caring church. The lay shepherds care catalyzes the church so that a caring church becomes a healthy church. (1 Cor 13). (Howard Stone,
The Caring Church, p. 74).
Our identity as Christians is defined by the gospel and the community. Thus, what we do is always defined by the gospel and our context is always our belonging in the church.
Often we do not do truth well because we neglect community (intentional body life). The number one reason truth is not applied and lived out, is because people are not sharing their lives (Tim Chester and Steve Timmis,
Total Church, pp. 16-17).
An heretical ecclesiology.
John Stott said “Our static and flexible self-centered structures are heretical structures because they embody a heretical doctrine of the church.” Stott goes on to say, “Our structure has become an end in itself, not a means of saving the world. It is a heretical structure” (Stott is saying that church structure has been unhinged from mission).
The gospel creates the church and also defines the church—a new humanity made up of believer-priests who have life in Christ in common.
To be gospel-centered and community-centered means church is joined to our identity in Christ, not a responsibility (or Sunday duty) to be juggled with other commitments. The gospel means our identity is found in Christ which shapes the whole of life so that life and mission become total church. The gospel is the story of God creating a new humanity in Christ.
We need Spirit-inspired imagination to reconfigure church and mission around the gospel Word and the gospel community—it the biblical perspective versus the default mode (the ‘institutional’/traditional) (Chester, Timmis, pp. 18-20).
God’s purpose in creating a new humanity.
Where God’s Word is not heard, chaos and darkness close in. The rejection of God’s rule begins with the rejection of God’s Word (the Lie believed and acted upon in Eden was the inception of this darkness). When God called Abraham, His plan was to restore His rule and create a new humanity. Paul calls it the gospel announced in advance, (Gal 3:6-9). God is reestablishing His rule through His Word. The lie of the serpent portrayed God’s rule as harsh and tyrannical. The reality that God’s rule is life, love, blessing, peace, justice and freedom is the fruit of the gospel. In body life there is a constant mutual reminder by means of the gospel of God’s perfect, all-wise loving rule as life—life in Christ (Chester, Timmis, p. 25).
Jesus strategy is train and release, by contrast the strategy of cultural Christianity is to convert and retain.
Jesus strategy is to create open, authentic, learning, praying communities that are focused on making whole-life disciples who live and share the gospel as they relate to people in their daily lives. This means ending the distinction between full-time and part-time ministry and ending the distinction between Sunday morning and Monday morning. We need non-full-time leaders, lay shepherds who can model whole-life, gospel-centered, mission living. This involves creating a church culture that celebrates gospel living day to day. The upshot of this is we need more lay leaders or lay shepherds who are highly visible to the Body of Christ (as opposed to the select visibility of ordained clergy) (Chester, Timmis, pp. 36-37).
The gospel creates the church, defines the church, and defines its members. This is revolutionary; that the believing sinner possesses as grace-bestowed identity versus a self-created identity.
Westerners tend to find their identity in the positions they hold, the groups they affiliate with or dispositional identities such as character traits, behaviors or accomplishments (no wonder they live for daily and hourly validation on social media).
Westerners tend to answer the question, “Who am I?” by creating an answer for themselves. This is radically different and far removed from an identity received by grace. Churches are filled with people trying to construct an identity, earn their identity and prove their worth. This means that they are filled with lack of assurance and contentment. They are dependent on the approval of others. They tend to be self-righteous or vulnerable to any circumstance that thwarts the fulfillment of their ministry. An identity bestowed by grace is foundational to deep community (supernatural community). Note the values exhibited in deep community:
meekness, love, unity, interdependence, deference, transparency, mutual care and edification, empathy, burden-bearing, humility, mutual care, mutual nurture, shared life.
This is a reality through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But the key to finding relationship for Christians is our relationship with God. So, child of God, bride of Christ, temple of His Spirit form an identity given to me by grace.
Thus the gospel-saturated believer is motivated to constantly be expressing, or translating vertical fellowship with the Lord to horizontal fellowship with the brethren. My being in Christ means being in Christ with those who are in Christ (shared life). This is my identity, this is our identity —our identity is lived out in our relationships. To fail to live out our corporate identity in Christ (real members of one another) is analogous to an act of spiritual adultery. We should not live as disembodied Christians apart from the Body of Christ. The loyalties of a new community supersede even the loyalties of biology or DNA (Matt 10:34-37) (Chester, Timmis, pp. 40-41).
God has made us persons in community; the community of the Body is the vehicle through which He reveals His glory.
But rebellious humanity has grasped for autonomy from God. Fallen man under the curse of God lives with fractured human community (interrupted and corrupted by self-ism, ego). As His image bearers we fall short of His glory. But God’s plan is to create a new humanity with His promise. Community by the gospel heals the relational separations caused by sin (Chester, Timmis, p. 47). (Add Zahl here,
A Short Systematic Theology
.)
The Church is not something optional; it’s at the heart of God’s purposes.
Jesus came to create a people who would model what it means to live under His rule. The church is a glorious outpost of the kingdom of God, an embassy of Heaven (Chester, Timmis, p. 50).
Jesus defines mission as a process of discipleship. In the Great Commission He establishes the necessity and means of universal discipleship.
Baptism marks are birthed into the family of God. This is the context where I am made a disciple. In the family of God, I am able to care and be cared for, love and be loved, forgive and be forgiven, admonish and be admonished, encourage and be encouraged – all of which are essential to being a disciple of the risen Lord (Chester, Timmis, p. 112).
Truth cannot be taught effectively outside of close relationships. The truth of the gospel becomes compelling as we see it transforming lives in the routine of daily messy relationships. Life on life—shared life public and private is essential to holistic discipleship.
Jay Adams says, “A whole person will affect whole persons on all levels. That is the goal of discipleship training. Therefore truth incarnated in life is the goal. For reaching the goal only one method is possible – the biblical one – discipleship. Whole persons must teach whole persons the Word must be made flesh” (Chester, Timmis, p. 118).
Information can be imparted, techniques can be learned, skills acquired, but without the relational dimension, it will always fall short of true discipleship.
The effects of the Fall are reversed as we become lovers once more of God and others. This is the ‘gospel mold’ into which we are poured which forms us around Christ’s purposes. The life of the body (shared life) is God’s intended arena for discipleship and growth. Jesus commanded His disciples to go and make disciples of the nations teaching them to obey what He commanded. The most significant obstacle is sin. This is precisely why discipleship is essential. As a Christian I am a disciple. That’s an identity not an event. I never reach a point where I no longer require daily discipleship by the Word of the gospel in the gospel community (Chester, Timmis, p. 121).
Why must the members of the Body of Christ ‘excel’ at admonishment? Spiritual, mutual care involves constantly exposing the deceitfulness of sin.
Sin is deceitful, that’s why it never presents itself as sin. It creeps up on us camouflaged and reasonable—disguised as fulfillment. Often we are the last to notice its deceit. But, others can and often do. That is why being part of a gospel community is so vital. So much of church ministry, especially counseling is not preventative, but reactionary (Chester, Timmis, p. 151).
We must take Christ’s command very seriously: “Teaching them to observe/obey.” The hermeneutics of community is closely related to the hermeneutics of obedience.
There is a close connection between understanding the Bible and obeying the Bible, between knowledge and discipleship. The readiness to obey Christ’s words is the pre-requisite to understanding them. And if discipleship was necessary for understanding, then a discipling community was necessary for understanding (body life) (Chester, Timmis, p. 161).
Body life exists to fulfill the Great Commission. The Christian community is the context in which commitment to obedience is nurtured and maintained.
(And so it is the context in which theology must be done). In Ephesians chapter 4, Paul affirms the role of teachers is to prepare God’s people for works of service. Notice that we reach the knowledge of the Son of God together. Inerrant and biblical ecclesiology including body life is the non-negotiable that discipleship is necessary for obedience (Ibid, p. 159).
Theology involves the hermeneutic of obedience
, it’s dangerous to pursue theology for academic reasons only— theology must stay joined to the mission which Christ has for His church (Chester, Timmis, p. 161).
It’s not that hard to create a large congregation.
Paul tells us how it’s done: “give itching ears what they want to hear” (2 Tim. 4:3).
Cross-centered discipleship is gospel centered discipleship and gospel centered discipleship is obedience centered discipleship.
The world wants everything but to be centered on the gospel—for at the center of the gospel is the cross of Christ which must be applied to the life of every true disciple of Christ (Gal 5:24). Faithfulness to Christ and His word, so that one is gospel-centered, becomes the very definition of success (in other words, what other way can we truly know that we are making a disciple of Christ?) (Chester, Timmis, p. 193).
The gospel believed and obeyed prepares a person for deep community.
We’re not saved by principles and strategies, but by a Person. Many today speak about doctrine, but are reluctant to speak about the Savior in intimate terms. The gospel Word and the gospel community are essential to the life and vitality of a believer. My heart needs to hear that Word often: it is among the community of God’s people that the Word would be brought to bear on my life frequently and perceptively (body life).
It is through the Word among His people that the Holy Spirit works to break the sinners’ heart, and renew it so that I love God truly, madly, and deeply.
The gospel breaks my heart over sin, purifies my heart, makes it fit to receive grace and love, and thus makes me capable of being a new creature, who is part of a new humanity in a supernatural community (1 Pet 1:22-25) (Chester, Timmis, pp. 206-207).
The Great Commission is about intentionality; it is about engendering obedience-based discipleship.
When we study doctrine, it is unto this end that the person has the knowledge to be obedient. In an obedience centered discipleship program, the emphasis is how we can be obedient to Christ in every area of our life. When a new disciple asks a question, our answer must center upon what must you do to be obedient to Christ? Biblical faith is defined as being obedient to Christ in every situation (David Watson and Paul Watson,
Contagious Disciple Making,
15).
The priesthood of believers (which is inherent in our identity in the gospel) is incredibly important to disciple-making.
It affirms the work of the Spirit in the lives of all believers, it affirms the ministry potential of all believers, it affirms the responsibility of all believers and it empowers all believers to function as needed for the ministry of the church. By contrast what do we see today? We see a strengthening of the priesthood of the pastoral staff only. Somehow all the ministry of the church has been focused in one position even though the Bible is clear that there are multiple leadership roles (Watson and Watson, p. 51).
Exclusive pastoral leadership role is detrimental to the mandate to reach the nations for Christ. By strengthening the authority of pastoral leadership, the church has weakened the responsibility of all believers to function as priests.
A professional leadership has resulted in a reduction of those who feel qualified to minister. The net result is a weaker church lacking the infrastructure to multiply, expand of grow. The Bible is clear, leaders are servants to equip the saints for the work of ministry. The more the role of the pastor is highlighted the less relevant the church will be in reaching the world for Christ. It’s time to stop warehousing believers by widening the clergy laity divide. Pastors should be equipping people for every ministry in life and pushing them out into the lost world to make a difference, rather than locking them behind doors with church forms designed to weaken the believer (Watson and Watson, pp. 52-53).
In using Bible-oriented materials, there is a tendency to emphasize knowing God’s Word with some admonition to obey, but without the relationship necessary to see if it happens.
There is a misconception that if people know what is right, they will do what is right. Experience tells us this is not the case, yet we function as if it is. Disciples need the influence of mature disciples in their lives, “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” say Jesus.
They need relationships with these mature disciples that permits them to discuss any aspect of life and deal with any problem or sins they have and grow through experience as the wisdom born of obedience replaces knowledge. Mentoring involves the process of growing our disciple so that knowledge continues to be converted into wisdom. Maturing believers need to be mentors of others to grow in their own discipleship. Locating and solving our disciples’ blockages to sanctification, and monitoring their progress so that through mentoring their spiritual growth stays on track (Watson and Watson, pp. 204-205).
A church without discipleship is doomed to spiritual retardation.
The moment these discipleship relationships do not exist in our churches we find ourselves in a lose-lose situation. For new believers have no one to provide wise counsel, no examples to follow and no accountability. And mature believers have no one to spur them on to new levels of wisdom as knowledge turns to action in thought word and deed (Watson and Watson, pp. 204-205).
Our Lord’s pattern and Paul’s pattern for the church is an every member ministry.
All believers are priests—thus the biblical model for the work of ministry is the team approach. Full congregational participation is the biblical model of ministry. But if men and women are to be functionaries in their local church, someone is going to have to equip them for such service. That is the biblical role of shepherds (pastors/teachers). We must be honest and courageous concerning our departure from the biblical model of ministry (Bruce Stabbert,
The Team Concept,
Preface).
The church is a spiritually gifted body. The church of Jesus Christ is a supernatural, Spirit-indwelt, Spirit-empowered, living community of Christ-like servants who minister Christ’s love and care for one another
(1 Cor 12:7; 1 Pet 4:10). The same Spirit who grants life in Christ in common and links us together, also empowers and enables every believer.
Ministry is the sacred privilege and duty of every member in the body. All the
members are to perform a vital function; caring, building up, ministering to one another. With each member functioning as God intended, the body/community of believers will grow and an amazing interplay of gifts and services will result. Christ’s pattern is a ministerial body—this is the Master’s Master plan (how can we in good conscience say our plan is superior to His?).
By contrast, a professional ministry is harmful to the sanctification of the members.
Shared, brotherly leadership by ordinary men who are empowered by the Spirit is the structure established by the Apostles (Acts 20:28). (The ‘nature’ of the church is seen in its NT metaphors: a temple, family, body, flock, and bride).
The church as a family/community captures the fact that only the most intimate human relationships could express the love, closeness, privileges, and new relationships that exist between Christ and the members of His body
(Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership, pp. 15-
17).
The main business of body life/assembly life is the equipping and edification of believers. Body life exists to nurture disciples. When mutual ministry becomes central to the life of the body, the results are: unity, maturity, stability, and growth (Eph 4:13-15). Maturity is a mutual process in the body of Christ achieved by interdependent ministry of body life; that is Christ’s pattern, or ‘blueprint’ for His body.
Biblical body life exists to nurture disciples.
Developed gifts of the body are never a coincidence; that development depends upon a continued emphasis upon equipping the members of the body for the work of the ministry. There must be active encouragement and expectation that spiritual gifts will be used (Gary Inrig,
Life in His Body, pp. 44-47).
Perhaps the greatest weakness in the body of Christ today is that we have relinquished and surrendered our responsibility to discipline one another
(Prov. 9:8). Pop psychology’s mantra, “I’m ok, you’re ok” has eaten up all of our courage to admonish one another. That makes for very unhealthy churches, for the Apostle Paul establishes that ongoing mutual admonishment is a mark of a healthy church body (Rom 15:14) (Walter Hendrichsen,
Disciples are Made not Born, p. 74).
In disciple-making we teach who and what the disciple has become because of his relationship with Christ. The Christian life comes out of this new identity, for our new identity defines our Lord’s call upon our life.
Our new identity is a corporate identity with community injunctions. The vast majority of NT commands are people to people commands.
The believer has been equipped by Christ through regeneration and the indwelling Spirit to be a blessing to others.
In that sense, none of our reception of spiritual benefits from the Lord makes us an ‘end user’—we are called by God to be a blessing to others. We love because He first loved us (1 Jn 4:19). We are to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly so that we might prayerfully speak the Word of God to our brethren. This should be increasingly natural for the Christian, so that it does not involve courage or risk. A huge part of embracing the biblical perspective is for each believer to see him or herself as truly ‘an instrument in the hands of the Redeemer’.
We are commanded to think about and consider ways to stimulate our brethren to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24-25).
There is intentionality here; premeditation, planning. Our encouragement of our brethren ought to be the overflow of our devotional life and fellowship with the Lord (Jay Wegter, “Summary of Disciple-making).
BONHOEFFER: Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ.
What does this mean?
It means, first, that a Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ.
It means, second, that a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ.
It means, third, that in Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity.
First, the Christian is the man who no longer seeks his salvation, his deliverance, his justification in himself, but in Jesus Christ alone.
He knows that God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces his guilty, even when he does not feel his guilt, and God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him not guilty and righteous, even when he does not feel that he is righteous at all. The Christian no longer lives of himself, by his own claims and his own justification, but by God’s claims and God’s justification.
The death and the life of the Christian is not determined by his own resources; rather he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from outside, in God’s Word to him. The Reformers expressed it this way: Our righteousness is an “alien righteousness,” a righteousness that comes from outside of us.
They were saying that the Christian is dependent on the Word of God spoken to him.
He is pointed outward, to the Word that comes to him… But God has put his Word into the mouth of men in order that it
may be communicated to other men.
When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others.
God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man.
Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him.
He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.
He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation.
He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ.
The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.
And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.
As such, God permits them to meet together and gives them community.
Their fellowship is founded solely upon Jesus Christ and this “alien righteousness…”
Second, a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ.
Among men there is strife.
“He is our peace,” says Paul of Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:14).
Without Christ there is discord between God and man and between man and man.
Christ became the Mediator and made peace with God and among men.
Without Christ we should not know God, we could not call upon Him, nor come to Him.
But, without Christ we also would not know our brother, nor could we come to him.
The way is blocked by our own ego.
Christ opened up the way to God and to our brother (note that justification by faith means that Christ carries our status before God; that is foundational to true community).
Third, when God’s Son took on flesh, he truly and bodily took on, out of pure grace, our being, our nature, ourselves.
This was the eternal counsel of the triune God. Now we are in him.
Where he is, there we are too, in the incarnation, on the Cross, and in his resurrection.
We belong to him because we are in him.
That is why the Scriptures call us the Body of Christ.
But if, before we could know and wish it, we have been chosen and accepted with the whole Church in Jesus Christ, then we also belong to him in eternity
with one another.
We who live here in fellowship with him will one day be with him in eternal fellowship.
He who looks upon his brother should know that he will be eternally united with him in Jesus Christ. Christian community beams community through and in Jesus Christ. One is brother
to another person only through Jesus Christ.
I am a brother to another person through what Jesus Christ did for me and to me; the other person has become a brother to me through what Jesus Christ did for him.
This fact that we are brethren only through Jesus Christ is of immeasurable significance.
Not only the other person who is earnest and devout, who comes to me seeking brotherhood, must I deal in fellowship.
My brother is rather that other person who has been redeemed by Christ, delivered from his sin, and called to faith and eternal life.
Not what a man is in himself as a Christian, his spirituality and piety, constitutes the basis of our community.
What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ.
Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us.