WE ALL… one body. WE ALL… a perfect man.
Those two words, WE ALL, jumped out yesterday, when I was thinking on Ephesians 4:13, which says, “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:” Notice ‘we all’, but ‘A’ perfect man. That’s saying something far more than ‘we each… many perfect men’.
Then there’s 1 Corinthians 12:12-14: “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.”
There it is again. ‘We all’ are one body. Much more than a bunch of independent, self-sufficient, perfect little bodies. Whether we’re thinking of the ‘body’ as our own physical body, or our family within our four walls, or the body of believers we worship with, or the whole body of Christ all over the world, every member needs all the others.
Also, whether it’s our family, our church, or worldwide, no member can say, “You need me, but I don’t need you.” That would actually be division and discord in the body. Sure, we could hear just fine if we were missing a leg, or you could run a marathon without an ear, but God is bringing together a body in the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That’s a body in which every member receives from, and cares for, and functions together with every other member in one accord.
So that brings up one very important question: who is the ‘we all’? Who are the other members of our body? Really, who is the body of Christ? I wouldn’t want to be trying to cut off a member that God wants to use as part of that ‘perfect man’. I need him.
It’s really another way that I need to ‘discern the Lord’s body’.
Recent Comments