Alex Badega

AST student
ID: 20210027
Fall 2021
THE CHURCH AS THE BODY OF CHRIST

Introduction

As Christians, it’s thought to be our culture that we wake up every Sunday morning,
prepare ourselves and head to Church. To most of us, the word “Church” means a certain
building somewhere, with fancy and complex constructed structure made of different materials
such as wood, stones, bricks etc. We have been brought up in a religious tradition that highly
reveres the structured building made of earthen materials as God’s real dwelling place. Within
this type of Church (buildings), those who serve in them are held in high regard as if they are
God’s next of kin who have no relationship whatsoever with the worldly evils. It’s like they live
in heaven and come very early on the Sunday morning to minister to their congregations and
then disappear in the evening of the same day. I’m reminded of the Pharisees in the days of Jesus
who loved “to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues” 1, and
judged others the rest for not honoring the temple sacrifices. No wonder many Christians have
been manipulated and robed in the name of building God’s house. Some of their leaders borrow
certain scriptures from the Old Testament such as Exodus 35:20-29 where the Bible speaks about
the generosity of the Israelites who gave towards the construction of the tent of meeting.
Although the tent of meeting contained the presence of the Ark of the covenant that represented
the presence of God, these leaders use such scripture to defend their greed for money and robe
the poor of the little they have in the name of building another tabernacle for God in the
dispensation of the New Testament. They forget what Paul said in Acts 17:24 while speaking to
the idol worshiping Athenians regarding the God whom they didn’t know. Picking from their
very own alter that had an inscription on it “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD”, he presented to them a
God who “does not live in shrines made by human hands” because it’s in him that “we live and
move and have our being”. As much as the concept of church being a building where we go for
worship every Sunday might be true to some, the building depicts something greater than the
physical structure of temporal earthly materials.

What is “Church”?

In Christian theology the term ‘Church’ means both: a particular body of believers such
as a local congregation, and the whole universal body of the faithful. This term is also used in the
Septuagint (The Greek translation of the Old Testament) referring to the assembly of Israel as
God’s people. The best way of understanding the concept of “Church” is to look at it through the
lenses of Apostle Paul’s system of truth. One of the earliest Christian reflections on the Church is
Paul’s conception of the Church as the “Body of Christ.” “Now you are Christ’s body, and

1
Matthew 23:6, NRSV
individually parts of it”2. Paul compares the individual parts of the human body (eye, hand) with
the individual members of the Corinthian church: all the parts/members must work together so
that the whole body can function properly. In his epistles Paul uses the Greek word “Ekklesia”
which is more than a building or an organization. It is the voice of God that reveals man’s true
origin and identity in Christ. The compound Greek of “Ekklesia” is the preposition ‘ek’ denoting
origin, and ‘kaleo’, meaning ‘to surname, to identify by name, to call or salute by name’. In that
context, believers are God’s immediate audience called out and summoned by Him to belong to
the Lord.

The Church which Apostle Paul considers as the “body of Christ” a universal entity!
When he speaks of the “church which meets” in a certain location, he does not necessarily mean
a different entity from the universal concept of Church but he means a apart of the universal
body that meets in that location. This is what the Church father had to use the word “Catholic”
when speaking of the Church. The term “Catholic” was derived from the Latin word
“catholicus” from the Greek adjective “katholikos” meaning ‘universal’ was used by the church
fathers to refer to the universal body of Christ. The church father Saint Ignatius of Antioch was
the first to use the word "Catholic" in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans (circa 110 AD)3 which he
wrote to the church in Smyrna encouraging them to stay united. Etymologically, within the
second half of the 2nd century, the word "catholic" began to be used to mean “orthodox” that is to
say “non-heretical”. This happened because Catholics (non-heretics) claimed to teach the whole
truth, and to represent the whole Church, while heresy arose out of the exaggeration of some one
truth and was essentially partial and local. In this context, it is very clear that the Church should
be understood as a universal body of Christ.

Glued to Christ

Apostle Paul again reveals the church as the mystical body of Christ. Speaking of the
marriage union in his epistle to the Ephesians, he quotes Genesis 2:24 which says, “For this
reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become
one flesh”, then in the proceeding verse he continues to say that, “This is a great mystery, and I
am applying it to Christ and the church”4. In verse 31 he use the Greek verb “proskollaō” which
means “to glue upon” or “to glue to”. It is the same word used in 1 Corithians 6:16 where
Apostle Paul speaks of a believer as being “joined/glued to/kollaō” to the Lord to become “one
spirit with Him”. Believers are in this case are therefore “glued to” Christ to become one
flesh/body and one spirit.

Most profoundly, in his system of truth Apostle Paul constructs a very specific
terminology in all his epistles. These are two most simple yet profound words which introduces
us to Christ as our life. They are presented in the Greek language with the preposition ‘En’ plus
the locative sphere ‘Christos’. ‘En Christos’ or ‘In Christ’, are the most powerful words in all the
Apostle Paul’s epistles. There is no word in scripture, with exemption of ‘God was manifest in
fresh’, hold within themselves a deeper mystery than the simple formula of the Christian life: In
2
1 Corinthians 12:27. NRSV
3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_(term)
4
Ephesians 5:31-32, NRSV (Emphasis Added)
Christ. In addition, it’s the most frequent phrase in the New Testament whereby it (and its similar
forms) appears more than 6o times in the Bible.

Affirming the truth regarding the union of the Church and Christ, Apostle Peter also
used the analogy of a building referring to believer as “like living stones” joined together to form
“a spiritual house”5 of which Christ is the living and precious chief cornerstone. This has nothing
to do with a physical building of the fancy cathedrals we see around the globe made of
temporary earthly materials and built by human hands but it’s about God’s spiritual house made
up of His spiritual Children around the world. They are the called out ones of the Lord and are
identified with Him are marked/sealed with the His Holy Spirit as a sign of ownership 6. The
Church is therefore understood to be a body of believers, both local and global, joined together
by faith in Christ Jesus.

Shared Faith

In his book “Against Heresies”7 Irenaeus of Lyon wrote about the unity of the faith
shared by the universal body of Christ. He said that “the Church, though dispersed throughout
the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples
this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the
sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became
incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the
dispensations of God…”. It is very obvious that Irenaeus was influenced by Paul’s writings
because the statement above is most likely derived from Ephesians 4 where Apostle Paul speaks
of the unity of the faith. In Ephesians 4:1-3, Apostle Paul encourages the believers “to lead a life
worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with
patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace.” The term “Uinity” used by Paul here is the Greek word “henotēs” which
means “oneness” from the word “Hen” a Greek primary numeral. This word echoes the very
words of our Lord Jesus Christ recorded in John 17:21 where Christ prays for the oneness of all
who will believe the message of the apostles. It is in the same context that Irenaeus tried to
convince his readers that no matter the differences in location, ethnicity, language or color, the
church remains united by her faith.

Unfortunate, the church has not been able to keep perspective of this unity but
continuously struggle with issues of divisionism based on denominationalism. History shows that
the church has experienced certain forms of divisions at every level based on different Biblical
views and out of that, several different Christian groups or denominations have been formed.
Every group of believers who form a part of Christ’s body have identified their very own system
of interpretations using particular keys of scriptures, which gives them their own particular

5
1 Peter 2:4-7, NRSV
6
Ephesians 1:13.
7
Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol.1: The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus: Ch 10.
understanding that is distinctive to them as a group or denomination. The problem with this
however, is that none of the supposed keys ultimately turns the lock to grant us access to the vast
treasures of the gospel truth. It should be universally acknowledged however, that the only key is
what Apostle Paul calls “In Christ”. This key unlocks the truth of our oneness with Christ as
expressed in his epistle to the Ephesian Church, calling us to make “every effort to maintain the
unity8 of the Spirit in the bond of peace”9 because “There is one body and one Spirit”. No matter
our differences, the Church in her diversity of operations remains one whole universal body of
the living Christ, glued to Him and eternally preserved within Him, by Him and for Him.

All Is In God

The concept of the Church as the body Christ is very fundamental in regard to forming
fruitful and successful Christian relationships and in serving our communities and congregations.
It gives us a strong basis of building lasting ministries that will powerfully impact generations in
a way that creates peaceful and restful environments in our societies beginning from families to
institutions and political systems. We need to fully understand that individualism is not a
Christian or a biblical concept and try our best to avoid it as much as we can. We need to
acknowledge our interdependence and interrelation with each other to the extent that we are fully
convinced that we are eternally inseparable.

Not only that, our view about God ought to be changed. We need to cease from trying
to personalize God by limiting Him from being who He is to the world and the creation at large.
We must get rid of the “myopic Western consumerism that would destroy the very fabric of
creation for pleasure and gain.”10 As Cooper put it, “the challenges of our time clearly demand a
new way of thinking. It is high time to embrace a panentheism that sees all creation as an
expression of the God in whom we ‘live and move and have our being’”. Panentheism is from
the Greek word panentheos which means “all-in-God”. It is a theological concept that deals with
God’s relationship to the universe by implying that the entire universe is in God. God’s
relationship with creation is best revealed within what is termed as the “Cosmic Christ” in
Christology. According to Irenaeus in his writings “Against Heresies” 11, cosmic Christology
speaks of how all of humanity and the entire creation were created good but tainted by sin, but
that all of creation was "recapitulated" and restored under the new headship of Christ. He reveals
to us the truth that Christ as being truly man and truly God is omnipresent and omnipotent. This
helps us to realize that God is not only with us, but also in us, around us, through us and for us.
As Cooper-White wrote, “recognizing one Creator for all humanity, understood and worshipped
in multiple ways, might not be a bad place to begin if we recognize the Otherness of a God who
is not the property of any one religion or group.”12

8
Strong’s Concordance: Greek lexicon: “henotēs” meaning “oneness; G1775
9
Ephesians 4:3-4; NRSV
10
Cooper-White, Braided Selves: Collected Essays on Multiplicity, God and Persons; pp.3
11
Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol.1: The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus.
12
Cooper-White, Braided Selves: Collected Essays on Multiplicity, God and Persons;pp.3
 Sharers of the divine nature

The Pauline concept of living in unity/oneness empowers us to live in love towards one
another. When I speech of love I mean God’s kind of Agape (the self-emptying love of God).
The love which is God’s essence or substance not his attribute. John the Beloved tells us in his
first epistle that “God is Love”13. When John said that “God is Love”14, he meant that love is not
God’s attribute but His true essence/ousia. Love is the divine essence shared within the three
hypostases/Persona of the Godhead. Obviously, love can never be recognized as love unless it’s
expressed, received and experienced. The self-emptying love (Agape) of God expressed by the
Father, received by the Son and experienced through the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Father
is the Lover, the Son is the Beloved and the Holy Spirit is the Bond of Love. It is within this
union and shared life that God purposed to include man through His beloved Son Jesus Christ. In
Christ, we have been given the privilege to share in the divine essence and the Holy Spirit has
been granted to us as bond that unites us together as God’s own, eternally glued/joine/ kollaō
together as ONE (Greek “hen”).

We have been joined together in Christ in order that we may become “participants of
the divine nature”15. The word translated here as “participants” is derived from the Greek word
“koinōnos” which means “a sharer or a partaker”. This means that in Christ we have been made
partakers of the divine nature/essence/ousia which is Agape (the self-emptying love of God). As
children of God, love should not be considered as our attribute but our very nature.
Understanding and acknowledging the truth of who we are and whose we are is very
fundamental in our Christian life. We have been made sharers of the divine nature by virtue of
being joined with Christ. Christ Jesus became “our life” 16 as Paul said in his epistle to the
Colossian church. This is our inheritance as sons of God, we need to be convince of it and
acknowledge it in one another.

Gifted for service one another

In my view, this changes the way we do ministry and the how we build relationships
within our families, local churches, organizations and communities. The perspective we carry in
our consciousness towards one another and the communities we are assigned to serve determines
how and why we do what we do. The approaches we use in our evangelism programs, whether
through community outreach programs or open-air gospel crusades and other means are
generally based on the perspective we have toward the people in question. How we serve and
care about one another proves how much we understand and are convinced of our true
relationship with each other as one body. This is exactly why Apostle Paul in his first epistle to

13
1 John 4:8,16.
14
1 John 4:8,16; NRSV
15
2 Peter 1:4;NRSV; Emphasis added.
16
Colossians 3:4.
the Corinthian Church endeavored to explain to them the diversity of ministry gifts given to the
body of Christ for service.

In first Corinthians chapter 12, Apostle Paul tell us that, “Now there are varieties of
gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are
varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.” 17 In this
portion of Scripture, we learn that the Spirit of God has given varieties of gift to the Church for
service. We are also informed that even though the gifts are given by the one Holy Spirit, it’s
God who activates all the gifts, to make them work in everyone. Therefore, it doesn’t depend on
us to be gifted nor to make our gifts active within us. This reminds me of what Paul said in his
epistle to the Philippian Church. In Chapter 2 verses 13 he says, “for it is God who is at work in
you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure”18. I think this verse lowers
down every tendency of pride and arrogance that we might be tempted to have. Realizing that
whatever we do based on the level of giftedness is from God not from us should make us humble
enough and encourage us to become good stewards.

Overcoming selfishness

One of the greatest challenges for most gifted men and women in the body of Christ is
selfishness. No wonder there are always reoccurring divisionism in Church for centuries. This of
course is a result of self-centeredness which the greatest cause of all evil we are seeing in the
world. Actually, if “loving one another as we love ourselves” was the only prerequisite for
salvation, humanity would be entirely and eternally damned but thank God for His grace and
love towards us. Because we all fall short of this glorious self-emptying love and are swallowed
up by self-love. Selfishness makes it very difficult for us as leaders to share and extend the
Agape (self-emptying love of God) to others. This is mainly because we don’t know or grasp the
Love of God towards us. When fully comprehend the love of God and how much He has loved
us, we enabled to love other with the self-emptying love of God. We draw our love for others
from the Love we have been loved by God. Apostle John Beloved said that, “we love because he
first loved us”19. It’s from the love of God which “has been poured into our hearts through the
Holy Spirit…” that we are convinced to love one another.

When “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” 20, he didn’t do it for some
and left out others as some may assume. He loves each one of us the same with the same Love he
loves His Som. Agape has no other basis expect the nature of the Lover. There is absolutely
nothing inherent in humanity that should make God love us. In other words, God did not look
into the future to foresee that you would be obedient and then decide that He would love you.
Loving you is in His nature! He is acting consistent with Himself in His love for you. If such
love doesn’t make sense to our rational minds, it is because ‘agape’ is so divine it must be
17
1 Corinthians 12:4-6; NRSV
18
Philippians 2:13;NRSV
19
1 John 4:19;NRSV
20
John 3:16
disclosed to us by the power of the Father-Son relationship revealed in the Gospel. There is
nothing you can do to cause God to love you more than He already loves you. God does not love
us because He has reconciled us to Himself; it is because He loves us that He reconciled Himself
to Himself. There is nothing that will cause Him to love you less because the essence of agape is
something called acceptance. The Father has accepted you. In accepting you He accepted you the
way you are, but He will never leave you the way you are.

The Conviction and comprehension of this great truth regarding the ‘Agape” gives us
clear view concerning our union with Christ and with one another. This is what Apostle Paul
means when he says that, “…the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one
has died for all… And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves,
but for him who died and was raised for them” 21. The word translated as “urges” is the from the
Greek word “sunecho” which means “to hold together” or “to compress”. In other words, the
love of Christ holds us together because of the fact that when He died, we all died with Him and
He did for us so that we should not life for ourselves but for live for Him who died and rose for
us all. Such conviction overcomes self-centeredness and introduces to a strong love relationship
with one another that can not disappoint us. As the body of Christ, we are held together,
compressed and compelled by His divine nature of love.

Conclusion

In my understanding therefore, I believe that if we change the way we think about

ourselves, about who we are and whose we are, we will obviously change the way we do
ministry as we serve our fellow Christians and our communities at large. We need to redefine our
concept of Church and how we view those who consider not being members of the church. We
need to change our approaches when doing evangelism and outreaches within our communities.
Love should be our driving force or compelling power. Avoiding all kinds of divisionism and
encouraging love towards one another as Christians and our communities. We can’t be
empathetic, sympathetic, understanding and caring if we don’t act in love. As Paul said, love is
“the most excellent way”. No matter how gifted we are, if we don’t act in love, we are wasting
our time and our services are unprofitable. We care because we love, we become empathetic
because we love, we share because we love, we listen because we love and we preach because
we love. We are one body, having different parts and different in operation yet serving the same
head for the same purpose, GROWTH!

Biography

21
2 Corinthians 5:14,NRSV;Emphasis added.
1. Philip Schaff -Ante-Nicene Fathers — Volume I: The Apostolic Fathers with Justin
Martyr and Irenaeus
2. Pamela Cooper-White, Braided Selves: Collected Essays on Multiplicity, God and
Persons
3.