The Body of Christ

Memory verse: “In Christ, we who are many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:5)

One of the problems many evangelical churches face today is that they have so emphasized the doctrine of the priesthood of believers, that they have lost their sense of corporate identity. What does that mean in simple terms? Christians think they stand alone before God and that they are not accountable to anyone else, including the church.

Christians do have access to God through Christ as their one Mediator. God, however, created the church as His redemptive agent in the world. He has a purpose for the church. God places every member in a church to accomplish His redemptive purposes through that church. 

Read these descriptions from the Bible about the church

The church is the body of Christ

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it (1 Cor. 12:27)

Jesus Christ is present as Head of local church

Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ (Eph 4:15)

Every member is placed in the body as it pleases God

But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose (1 Cor. 12:18

The Holy Spirit manifests Himself to every person for the common good

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (1 Cor. 12:7)

The whole body is fitted together by the Father. Members are enabled and equipped by the Holy Spirit to function where the Father has placed them in the body. The body then functions to build itself up into the Head, until every member comes to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ

Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13)

God made us mutually interdependent. We need each other. What one member lacks, others in the body can supply

The whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (Eph. 4:16)

Final Thoughts

  • God wants His people to be holy and pure

  • God wants His people to display unity

  • God ants His people to love one another