The Church Which Is His Body

by J. PEDDIE | Category: General | Sept 1963

We believe that the Church which is His (Christ's) Body is co-extensive with the Bride, the Wife of the Lamb. Of all the great New Testament truths this is one of the most delightful to contemplate, and will amply reward diligent study. As chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1.4), believers are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8.17), and shall share with Him in the coming glory. Christ who loved the Church, and gave Himself up for it (Ephesians 5.25), shall see the fruit of His pain, for His Bride shall be with Him in the Millennium, and for ever and ever.

Since that memorable Pentecost (Acts 2) when the Holy Spirit descended, God has been taking out of the Gentiles a people for His name (Acts 15.14) which together with "the remnant according to the election of grace" (Romans 11.5) form the Church which is His (Christ's) Body. The coming of the Lord to the air will terminate the building of this Church.

The "falling-away doctrine," is seen to be utterly untenable, in the light of the truth of the Church which is the Body of Christ. Each member of the Body of Christ is eternally secure in Christ, who is the Head, the Saviour and Preserver of the Body. (Ephesians 5.23). "Because I live, ye shall live also" (John 14. 19) are His words to His disciples.

Christ is incomplete as was Adam before Eve was made. The Church which is the Body of Christ is "the fulness of Him that filleth all in all" (Ephesians 1.23). What a wonderful and intimate union exists between Christ and the Church! He is the Head, and we are the members of His Body. Every trial and adversity experienced by His members on earth is felt by the Head in heaven.

"God hath set the members each one of them in the body, even as it pleased Him" (1 Corinthians 12.18). "All the members have not the same office" (Romans 12.4). Each member has its own part to play. "God tempered the body together ... 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" (1 Corinthians 12.24-26).

God in His grace has imparted gifts to all members of the Church which is His Body. It is the responsibility of each one of us to find his or her God-appointed sphere of service whereby we may function as members of the Body of Christ. "From whom all the Body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the Body unto the building up of itself in love" (Ephesians 4.16).

The spiritual lessons to be learned from the natural body are profound in their simplicity.

The gifts of Christ (Ephesians 4.742) were given for the perfecting of the saints, and for the edification of the Body in its members.

J. PEDDIE | Sept 1963
General