Word of Salvation – January 2019
B.C.28 – Living Members
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Scripture Readings: Ephesians 4:1-16 & 1Corinthians 12:1-20
Text: 1Corinthians 12:27
Introd: When we talk about the Church we must make an important distinction
between the Church as an ORGANISM
and the Church as an ORGANISATION.
Scripture won’t allow us to think of the Church as some sort of club.
We cannot compare it to a sporting club… or a service club.
We have to see beyond just the organisational aspects of the Church.
Things such as programs and functions, office bearers and worship services…
important as those things are.
Instead of an organisation we must see the Church is first of all an ORGANISM.
A living, growing thing… where every part has a purpose and a place.
A living organism that has one source of life… and that is Jesus Christ.
The Biblical view of the Church then is that it is an organism.
And that helps to see the unity of the Church of Jesus Christ.
It enables us to look beyond our denominational boundaries.
There is the one Bride of Christ… the one Body of Christ.
It is drawn from every tribe and nation… from every period of history.
It is made up of all who confess Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God.
Today we want to look a little more closely at this ORGANISM that is the Christian Church.
And then especially at Paul’s image of the Church in I Cor. 12.
We can’t cover that whole chapter so we’ll concentrate on some central issues.
A] ONE BODY MADE UP OF MANY PARTS.
- The thing that strikes us immediately is that here too the Church is spoken of as a BODY.
IOW it is again seen in terms of an organism…
that living, growing thing made up of many parts…
yet where all the parts function together as they share a common life.
It is stating the obvious to say that a body is not an organisation it is an organism.
A body is not assembled in a factory where all the parts are put together.
In cartoons our children certainly meet bionic creatures
the ‘mighty machine men’, their parts organised and assembled in a factory.
But that is part of a pretend world and a very de-humanised one at that.
But you didn’t come into the world that way and neither did I.
Comedians sing about the ankle bone being connected to the shin bone etc.
But that wasn’t something that was organised that way… it grew that way.
A body is an organism and not an organisation.
However in Corinthians 12 when Paul speaks about the BODY of Christ
he is no longer thinking about that universal Church of all ages and all places.
He’s thinking very much of a local Church – including its organisational aspects.
Paul says to these Corinthian Christians: “YOU… (you Corinthians) are the Body of Christ.”
So we now have to change our thinking a little.
The Body of Christ does not mean here what it meant in Ephesians 4.
Not the invisible Church… the mystical universal Body of Christ…
something that embraces Baptists and Presbyterians, Anglicans, Reformed
and all others who trust in Christ alone.
Instead we now have to think of Body of Christ in terms of our local congregation.
You – the local Church – are the Body of Christ.
Every local Church – no matter how small or large – is a manifestation of the Body of Christ.
That’s an important matter to remember.
More and more we also want to look at the organisational side of the Church.
The local congregation as we experience it here and now
with its programs and functions and everything else that goes with it.
That is also what Paul is speaking about… the local Church at Corinth.
But even here we must still do justice to the Church as an ORGANISM.
Even when we think of OUR congregation.
We must NOT see it first of all in terms of a club or organisation.
We must see it as a living, growing organism.
All the parts share in a common life.
Every local Church is complete in itself… an organism… the Body of Christ.
- It might seem to you that I’ve been stressing this organism a little too much.
But I’ve done that for a reason.
Today it’s fashionable among some Christians not to worry too much about Church membership.
All the emphasis is put on that mysterious, all-embracing invisible Church.
Repeatedly people say it doesn’t really matter which Church one belongs to.
That it doesn’t even matter whether one belongs to a Church at all.
After all these are only the visible human organisations.
And look at all the problems denominationalism has caused anyway.
None of that matters!
All that matters is that one is a member of that mystical Body of Christ.
Locally organised Churches are fine if you feel that way inclined.
Some people put it more bluntly than that.
I’m sure you’ve heard people say they can be Christians without going to Church.
You may even know people who never go to Church but whom you consider fine Christians.
They really do put their trust in Jesus as Saviour and Lord.
It even seems from the Ephesians reading that Paul would agree with such people.
For Paul there is only one Body of Christ – the Church of all ages and all places.
And yet Paul has no trouble in turning around to these Corinthian people and saying:
YOU people are the Body of Christ.
I believe there is a good reason for this. There is a twofold way of looking at the Church.
That ONE universal Church is not something you can experience here on earth.
You and I can’t have meaningful contact with that invisible universal Church of Jesus Christ…
except… through the local Church… through a community of believers in a certain place.
Therefore Paul also calls that local Church – the Body of Christ.
So I put it to you that Scripture has no time for the kind of thinking that plays down the local Church.
I say that on the basis of this verse from I Cor. 12.
It is false to say that it does not matter whether or not you belong to a local Church.
Paul cannot think of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church of all ages…
…without at the same time thinking of it in terms of local Churches.
In this way Scripture makes clear that if a person is a Christian he will not only go to Church
but normally he will be a living member of that Church.
- Allow me to bring this home in yet one other way.
In verse 13 of I Cor. 12 Paul says: “For we were all baptised by one Spirit into one Body…”
That verse has been interpreted in three different ways.
There are those who say that this refers to Holy Baptism.
That it was through baptism that we were made members of the Body of Christ.
The difficulty with that is that there is no mention of water baptism here.
Here it is a baptism with the Holy Spirit.
Water baptism is certainly a sign of that but that is not what Paul means.
Others say this “baptism with the Spirit” refers to some special experience.
They argue that it’s possible to be a Christian and NOT to be baptised with the H.Sp.
Pentecostals often claim that there are two kinds of Christians….
Those who have been baptised with the H.Sp. and those who have not.
But – interestingly – Paul says that this happened to ALL of them.
That leaves us with one other possibility.
That this speaks about what happens in conversion… when we are born again.
And that would seem to suit the whole situation.
Paul addresses all believers and speaks of them in the past tense.
Something happened at a certain point of time to every one of them.
And that was that Spirit of God brought about their rebirth/conversion.
Now Paul says that this is the great unifying factor.
It is what made all of them members of the One Body.
Thru the Spirit’s renewing work they became one with Christ.
And in becoming one with Christ they also became one with others Christians in the body.
The whole thrust of Paul’s argument is that we need each other.
If we were all baptised by one Spirit into one Body then we belong together.
No one can ever say: I don’t need you.
Neither can anyone ever say: I don’t need to be a part of it.
The very image of the Body speaks of unity and togetherness.
In fact an isolated Christian… separated from the Church… is like an amputated finger.
And that is why our B.C. speaks in such strong language in this article.
It says: Christians may not withdraw from the fellowship of God’s people.
They are duty bound to join themselves to a worshipping community.
And to go against that is contrary to the ordinances of God.
Because God thru His Spirit has brought us together in one Body.
And that Body is not just the universal Church – it is a local community.
B] MANY PARTS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ONE BODY.
- Tonight we are talking not only about membership of the local Church.
But above all about active membership.
We are not just members of the body… we are LIVING members of the body.
Again if we think thru the implications that becomes obvious.
In a body every part has a function.
Imagine a body brought to the hospital with only one organ functioning.
We would say that a body like that was in a very critical state.
There’s not much life left in such a body.
In a well-functioning body every part of it makes some contribution.
Some have a more vital function that other but still every part has a role.
Paul says that every Christian has been given some gift.
That there is no such thing as a gift-less Christian.
The problem is knowing what our gifts are… that may be harder to work out.
But there is not a Christian who does not have some gift by which to serve others.
Just as no single part of the body does not have some function to perform.
So Paul would say that it isn’t enough to be on the role of a local Church.
Of course it’s important – as we said – to go to Church and to be a member.
But it is not enough simply to be a member of the Church… by being on the roll.
Paul says that all the gifts we are given are FOR THE COMMON GOOD (v7).
In Ephesians 4 – that they have been given in order to build up the Body of Christ.
So we are to be living members…
willing to contribute our gifts and talents to serve the rest of the Body.
By that we don’t mean that everyone has to serve in some formal and official role.
An elder… a Sunday school teacher… or whatever.
However no Christian is excused from using his or her gifts for the wellbeing of the Body.
In the Body we cannot all just go around doing our own thing.
- There is another area were this also has some implications.
The previous article of the Belgic Confession considered the unity of the Church.
The Church is ONE. There are not two bodies of Christ.. there is but one Body.
So our unity is a fact… we can never escape that.
All Christians have a deep unity in the gospel of Jesus.
But again that is true not only for that worldwide universal Church of Jesus
that is just as true on the local level – we are one in Jesus Christ.
But now there is also another side to it.
You and I have to work at maintaining that unity.
We have to work actively for the unity of the Church of Jesus Christ.
In fact that was just the problem at Corinth – disunity.
Actually there wasn’t a more divided Church than the Church of Corinth.
People were split into parties… factions.
Some wanted to be disciples of Paul… others of Peter.
On top of that there were those who really put others down.
People were saying: Who needs you – you’re only a toe in the body.
So Paul had to say to them: Ok but try amputating a toe.
That is painful for the rest of the Body.
And when some Christians say: We don’t need you! they bring disunity into the Body.
The whole point of the Body metaphor is to stress unity… an organic unity.
And the trouble is that so often we undermine that unity.
Let me just mention – what I consider to be – two important implications that arise from this.
First of all that it is a serious matter to cause division within the Church.
The N.T. on a number of occasions warns against the sin of divisiveness.
The Body of Christ in a local place has often become sadly divided.
All of us ought to fight against that like the plague.
Many Churches have been torn apart by divisiveness.
Often division happened under the guise of people fighting for the truth.
But someone once said: Often people who say that they are fighting for the truth
are actually more fond of fighting than they are of the truth.
Secondly: it is a serious matter to separate from the local Church.
Later in the B.C. we see that one certainly needs to separate oneself
from a Church that can no longer be called a true Church.
Churches do not always remain faithful to the gospel of Christ.
And when that happens we have an obligation to look elsewhere.
But what I mean here is sinful separation from the Church.
Leaving the Church simply because we don’t like the way things are done.
Or resigning because we no longer hit it off with someone in the Church.
We can be guilty of causing disunity in the local Body of Christ.
We can do that by a sinful separation from our brothers and sisters.
God has called us to live out our oneness in a local body of believers.
- Finally and briefly one should also speak here of submission.
Submission to the oversight of the Church in its teaching and discipline.
In the Body things happen in an orderly way and not haphazardly.
In fact when things happen haphazardly and in an uncoordinated way
then there is something wrong with the body.
So too in the Body of Christ there is order and purpose.
In your body that order and purpose is determined by the head… the brain.
In the Body of Christ we – the Church – are the body… but Christ is the Head.
And He rules and governs it so that it serves for His glory and His purposes.
The Body must then always listen to it’s head – that is to Christ.
It must hear His word… so that it knows how to function.
That is why the true Body of Christ is only there
where the gospel of Jesus and the Word of God are rightly proclaimed.
A headless body cannot function.
Neither can a body in which the spinal cord between brain and body has been severed.
We have a Head and that is Christ… and His messages come to us thru His Word.
And we need to constantly listen to what our Head has to say to us.
That is also why Jesus has appointed office bearers in His Church
to rule on His behalf thru the ministry of His Word.
And we together as members of the Body ought to bow before that word
also as it comes to us thru those whom Jesus appointed in the Body, His Church.
The B.C. says we are to bow our necks under the yoke of Christ.
And we are to submit to the doctrine and discipline of the Church.
In that way too Jesus will be glorified and honoured in His Church.
Amen.
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.