Christ’s Pattern for His Church (Part One)
Life in the body: Is the church an institution or a living organism?
I. God has a specific plan or pattern for the Body of Christ.
A. The church is a living organism composed of interdependent parts, the church is not an institution. Those in union with Christ are also in union with one another. The living ‘body analogy’ for the church helps us understand the true organic nature of the church (1 Cor 12:12-13, 18) (Inrig, Life in His Body, p. 30). The church is an organism of interdependent parts (12:22-25). What difference does that make in the way we ‘do church?’ It makes a world of difference! We know from history that the church tends to revert to a social institution. Therefore, our commitment to the gospel and the Great Commission helps keep the true organic nature of the church central in our practice.
B. The body of Christ is the corporate expression of the grace of Christ. The gifts in the body at work are each a facet of Christ’s character reproduced and made visible (John MacArthur, The Body Dynamic, p. 101). God intends that the local church be a corporate display of His glory and wisdom—that is His plan for the church. But, how often do we think about the nature of the church in this way? God’s character is known by both the truth of the gospel and by the church’s organic union with Christ as her members function in harmony—showing collectively the character of Christ. God bids His people to enter His plot, His story—to be part of the big picture to manifest His glory through a supernatural community animated by Christ (Lane/Tripp, How People Change, pp. 93-94). The church is a medium of revelation—revealing the character of God. It does so ONLY when it incarnates the disposition of Jesus in our relationships. Wooing, winsome, conquering grace is a function of the church manifesting the qualities of Christ her Head (Jefferson, The Building f the Church, p. 154).
C. The supernatural fellowship of the members of the body is proof of the divine power of Jesus—“that they may be one” (Jn 17:21-23). According to Christ’s prayer in John 17, the unity of the brethren is evidence to the world that Christ came from heaven. The Lord declares His ministry to be that of binding men together by indissoluble bonds (Jefferson, p. 48-52). The miracle of regeneration has made us “new creatures” made for true community. We have something for which the world hungers—TRUE COMMUNITY. A group of individuals committed to one another where it is safe to know and be known—a place where you belong, are missed when absent, and where you make a significant contribution. The world wants community, but not on Christ’s terms.
Because of the grace of God there is no one on earth better equipped for true community than a believer. Consider our equipping: true believers have died with Christ and are now controlled by Christ’s love so as to no longer live for self but for Him who died and rose on their behalf (2 Cor 5:14-15). They are alive in Christ and joined to Him in an immutable covenant of love. They have the very righteousness of Christ imputed to their account (a new identity). They are indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit who is eager to produce the fruit of the Spirit. Their relationships with the brethren are held together supernaturally by Christ. They have the living Word of God which spells out God’s will for their relationships. They can be endlessly generous with forgiveness and acceptance because they have received both in infinite measure from Christ.
D. In order to understand the true nature of the church, we must grasp the fact that God the Father through the Son has formed a new humanity (‘Christ in you’—see Jn 14:16-21 and Col 1:25-27). By union with Christ we are complete in Him (all the benefits of His Person belong to the believer). Our supernatural union with Christ also means that believers are supernaturally joined together into a social structure called the ‘Body of Christ.’ This is how Christ sees us—as His body on earth.
Because by nature, the Church is a living organic body by virtue of union with Christ; our relationships among the brethren no longer exist for social reasons alone.
a.) God intends that the relationships in the body exist for mutual edification. b.) God intends that collectively we are to manifest the character and disposition of Christ. c.) God intends that our body life (fellowship) as ‘true community’ reflect the very communal life of the Godhead (see Jn 17).
II. The members of the body are vitally connected to Christ and to one another. A. Justification by faith (righteousness from outside of us—the righteousness of Christ imputed to us) is the basis for true community. Without justification, we could not know our brother; intimacy and transparency would be blocked by ego and by self-protection. But Christ opens the way to our brother. Christ opens up peace, love, acceptance, and service (Rom 15:1-7). Christ through His Spirit alone is the source of all unity (Eph 4:1-3), He is the ground and strength of our fellowship (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, pp. 23-24, 30, 39). Because Christ before God carries the status, worth, acceptance, favor, sonship, and standing of each believer, we can afford to ‘take the risks’ required to form close relationships with other believers. For in Christ, God treats us as if we had fulfilled perfect righteousness—He identifies His Name with ours—calling us His own children (1 Jn 3:1). If we truly believed this, banking upon this spiritual reality, just how much more would we pursue close relationships with the brethren?
B. The purpose of the church—“that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10). This divine purpose demands two non-negotiable essentials: a.) that the individual members are connected to Christ, and, b.) that God’s blueprint be followed (Inrig, p. 11). Thus, in order to carry out God’s purpose for His church, we will have to take His blueprint seriously (disiples making disciple-making disciples).
C. Our philosophy of ministry must be entirely shaped by Christ’s pattern for His church. The life of the church is defined by the true nature of the church: a called out group of individuals who have life in Christ in common. The members are united together in the reality of the indwelling Spirit. The presence of the indwelling Spirit gives the church a supernatural dynamic which is unique among all human organizations (Saucy, The Church in God’s Program, pp. 21-22, 27). The term “members of one another” (Rom 12:5; Eph 4:25) implies interdependent cooperation (1 Cor 12:21-25). Christ, by His finished work for us, took the separation, the alienation, the ‘dis-relatedness’ of our sin, and He gave us the right-relatedness of true community in its place. In redemption He gave us, as a gift of grace, His own right-relatedness to the Holy Trinity (Lane/Tripp, pp. 79-80).
D. In living out this right-relatedness, the church is a true community of people who are committed to doing spiritual good to others (Dever p. 41). From the nature of the church revealed in Scripture flows the function of the church. Growing believers ought to labor in love to more fully connect other believers to Christ. Mutual edification in the gospel is paramount for spiritual health (Rom 15:14). David Powlison comments that countless counseling crises occur because people don’t know how to get in touch with the living Lord Jesus (Miller, Outgrowing the Ingrown Church, p. 169).
III. The corporate function of the body is gospel-driven and Christ-dependent. A. True fellowship involves translating vertical fellowship with the Lord into horizontal fellowship with the brethren (1 Cor 1:9-10) (MacArthur, p. 115). The body is only healthy when its members are in subjection to Christ its Head and are responding to His [edification] commands under the loving rule of His Word—only then is the church functioning properly (Saucy, p. 29).
B. The body is lavishly supplied with all its needs for life, health, growth, and unity as it holds fast to Christ, its Head (Col 2:19). The individual members of the body then function as channels of spiritual nutrition in relation to one another that the body might grow “with a growth that is from God” (Col 2:19) (Saucy, pp. 30-31).
IV. Christ is building His church; He commands every member to build with Him. A. To edify is to build up. We are commanded to please our fellow believer so as to “build him up” (Rom 15:2). The fact that we are members one of another in a living organism is not grasped by most church members. We must be intentional and we must be always conscious of what Christ is building (Jefferson, p. 29).
B. Only a true disciple of the Lord can build the church. A true disciple spends his life following Christ. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mt 16:24). Christ is our example of obedience. His life was totally conformed to the will of His Father. Christ’s life was lived in the power of the Spirit. It was a life of unselfish service—of zeal, of expenditure, of self-control, of meekness, of kindness, faithfulness, and devotion (Gal 5:22-23). A disciple of Christ follows His example of obedience to the Father (Jn 15:8; 1 Pet 2:21-25).
C. True fellowship with the brethren is a vital means of grace; the Bible alone cannot make you strong and bring you to maturity. God’s grace flows through social bonds—the brotherhood is the atmosphere in which the gospel truths blaze (Jefferson, pp. 70-72). Sanctification is a ‘group effort’—it requires the corporate dimension. Close fellowship with other believers saved by grace causes the gospel truths to “blaze” (by means of fervent love for one another; our close communion with one another; and our communal sacrifices for the advance of Christ’s kingdom).
D. In order to build up our brethren, we must be deliberate (Dever, p. 37). The consumer-spectator-passive mindset cuts the nerve of being “others oriented.” God is calling His people to be outward-oriented in order to bring each member to maturity and to draw the lost to Himself (2 Tim 2:2; Rom 15:14; Col 2:19; Eph 4:16ff.; Heb 10:22-25).
E. Believers are to bear one another’s burdens, to build up one another (pointing out evidences of grace), and to encourage one another. We are to spur on our brethren to greater faithfulness (Dever, pp. 197-199). It is common to come to our church services without this edification mandate on our minds. In order for us to change, we will have to choose to be more deliberate in our fellowship. Consider ways that you can you be more deliberate about spiritual conversations intended for the good of your brethren. What are some specific ways you can fulfill the command in Hebrews 10:24-25? “And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds” (10:24). This passage of Scripture is about being deliberate.
It is rare for church members to embrace the mentality set forth in Ephesians 4:12: the saints are to be equipped “for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” Paul tells us in that passage that the members of Christ’s body are to do the work of service of building up the body. That means that church members are responsible for the major part of the transmission of the transforming Word of God to one another. This activity (‘re-speaking’ the Word, passing from member to member) is to be the normal function of the church!
V. The believer’s sanctification takes place within the context of the body of Christ. A. The Christian community (the local church) is the context for change. Individual redemption is played out in our relationships (Lane/Tripp, pp. 76-79). Are we in the habit of thinking about our relationships as the context for sanctifying change—that it is group effort? Why or why not? One of the biggest reasons why is because relationships make us vulnerable—they reveal character. Relationships involve risk. The community is a kind of mirror—our self-absorption shows up. But, community is the very thing we need to move us out of self-centeredness. The corporate body is needed to make me like Christ (Lane/Tripp, pp. 83-86).
B. We need the body of Christ in order to make us like Christ. Sanctification is a ‘group effort’. There is substantial change in individuals within the community of faith as the gospel is applied to friends and family. When the gospel is applied to our relationships and to our affections, it pulls us above our preoccupation with personal happiness to enjoy God’s blessings in Christ and to share those blessings with others (Lane/Tripp, p. 251).
Spiritual maturity is a mutual process achieved by interdependent ministry in the body. We are gifted by God for the common good (1 Cor 12:7). This is not a matter of terminology—the issue at hand turns upon the very nature of the church (Inrig, p. 45). Our fellow believers are agents of our change. God’s plan for our maturity operates through human instruments (MacArthur, p. 73).
EX. Several years ago I was introduced to a Christian man who had plumbed the depths during severe backsliding. He has used drugs and experienced homelessness. He shared something profound with me. “One of the many things God has taught me through my time of rebellion is this: you cannot love pleasure and God at the same time, the love of pleasure more than God will kill your love for God.” This disheveled man was declaring a scriptural principle which stuck with me. He was not afraid to prayerfully speak the Word even though I was a pastor and he was a struggling, returning believer.
This is where we sometimes get ‘crossed up’—we imagine that permission to speak the Word into the lives of others depends upon talent, giftedness, or earned degrees. Biblically that is not the case. Mutual edification between all believers is to be the norm when the Word dwells in us richly and we are obedient to the Spirit (Col 3:16).
VI. Each believer is a steward of God’s grace for the purpose of building with Christ. A. Believers are stewards of God’s grace. Each Christian has been given a spiritual gift which is to be employed in serving the body (1 Peter 4:7-11). The unity of the body depends upon a deep and practical appreciation of the diversity of gifts in the body (1 Cor 12:14-31). This depth of appreciation also means that we are willing to be on the receiving end as others exercise their gifts.
B. New Testament metaphors help us understand the nature and function of the church. The church is a “Temple made up of living stones” (Eph 2:19-22; 1 Pet 2:4-10). “Living stones being built together” clearly communicates the communal nature of the church. Each stone is fitted for close contact and a perfect fit in relation to the other stones in the building—each niche is filled and each stone is adequately fitted for it by “the measure of Christ’s gift” (Eph 4:7) (Saucy, p. 35).
The living stones are “framed together in the Lord” into an abode or habitation of God (Eph 2:21). The Greek word for ‘fitted’ or ‘framed’ together is meant to describe the whole elaborate process of preparing the surfaces of the stones by cutting, rubbing, testing, and setting (Reinecker/Rogers, Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament, p. 527). As in any masonry building of cut stones, the quality of the building is judged by the closeness of the stones to one another. The fewer gaps, the greater is the quality. In this analogy the church is built of members in close communion (close relationships) with each other by reason of the Spirit’s work of placing them strategically in the body (1 Cor 12:18).
Each believer is a temple individually (1 Cor 6:19), and collectively. The living stones comprise a royal and holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:9). The believer’s primary sacrifice is himself (Rom 12:1-2; Heb 13:15-16; Phil 2:17). We cannot truthfully offer sacrifices to God without also serving our fellow brother, sharing our goods, and building up the community (Saucy, pp. 35-42, 95). The very essence of worship is giving ourselves back to God without reservation for the building up of His body, the church. Therefore, it is vital to worship that the believer find his or her place of service in the body of Christ.
The church is a body with Christ as its Head (Eph 4:7-16). The members of Christ’s body are to operate in an interdependent manner (vv. 11-15). Each individual member is to make a contribution to the growth of the body into maturity (vv. 15-16). We need to rethink our sanctification—it is tied to the contributions we make to the maturity of the members of the body. This takes us back to intentionality: we are to relate to one another in a caring, encouraging, and edifying way for the intent of their spiritual good. Mutual edification has as its great goal the spiritual maturity of each member. But, it is a growth and maturity that is both individual and corporate (Eph 4:11-13). Teaching, serving, admonishing, and discipling are the appointed means of this spiritual growth (Rom 15:14; Col 1:28-29). Genuine ministry is slavery to Christ and to one another lived out in our corporate life (Saucy, p. 131).