I.        Community of Believers

The term “body” is applied to the Church as the body “in Christ” (Rom. 12:5), “of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:27), or simply as “his body” (Eph. 1:23).

Since this is a term unique to Paul, it is important to understand its development. The basic idea is the collective solidarity of Christ and believers. Assuming that 1 Corinthians is its earliest use, a progression can be at least tentatively suggested.

In 1 Cor. 6:15–17, Paul introduces the concept of body as participation: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” Borrowing from the OT image of marriage as constituting “one flesh” (Gen. 2:24), he uses the sexual union to conclude that “he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (v 17).

The first use of the phrase “body of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:16f). furthers the idea of both collective solidarity and participation. Breaking of bread, symbolic of new-covenant concepts, is participating in the body of Christ. Just so, unworthy participation (without discernment) profanes the “body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:27). This is followed by the enumeration of gifts emanating from the Spirit (ch 12) and their direct application to “the body” (12:12–26) with its unity and diversity. Paul immediately proceeds to his next use of the term by concluding, “now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (While it may be aruged that this refers primarily to the church at Corinth, this does not preclude its universal application.) This same sense of interrelatedness within the church is repeated in Rom. 12:3–8 where the term becomes “one body in Christ” (v 5).

It may well be that since Paul in several places resorts to an analogical use of the marriage relation to illustrate his body-of-Christ concept (1 Cor. 6:15–17; Eph. 5:21–33) he has in mind the concept of Israel as the bride of God (Jer. 2:2), and through new-covenant theology develops the “body of Christ” as its parallel for the new Israel, the Church. Whether or not this concept developed in this way, the use of the term clearly emphasizes both corporate solidarity and participation.

The conceptual use of the body in relation to the Church is developed in three ways.

First, the Church is the body of Christ as a community of fellowship “in Christ.”

The Church is understood in its pneumatic (spiritual) mode of existence as communion with the risen Christ. It is the body of Christ as the fellowship in which He dwells by His Spirit and which by His Spirit He sustains. The Church is not constituted merely by the assembly of believers, but is the community created by the incorporation of believers into Christ. 1 Cor. 12:13 makes it plain that Christians are baptized “into one body,” which exists in Christ’s redemptive work not merely as the totality of believers, but as the community created by the risen Christ Himself (v 27).

This community exists as more than mere human fellowship. Paul uses the metaphor of the body to portray the correlation between the Church as a concrete entity on earth and the eschatological dimension of His redemptive person and work. The crucified body of Christ, risen now and actual within history, is at work in and through the Church. The community created by the presence of this earthly aspect of the risen Lord is the “body” into which believers are incorporated.

Second, as the body of Christ, the Church is a corporate unity in the relationship of believers to each other. Great stress is laid upon this unity in Paul’s metaphor of the Church in Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians. Its unity refers to both mutuality of identity and mutuality of service. Both Rom. 12:5 and 1 Cor. 12:12f assert this mutuality: as Christians are one body in Christ, so they are individually members one of another. As members of the one body they stand in mutual relation with each other in the service of the kingdom of God.

Precisely in this unity lies the great truth about the nature of the Church as the body of Christ. The pronouncements of these passages confirm that underlying the unity into which the many are incorporated is an objective, historical entity into which they are individually baptized. The fundamental idea here is that the body of Christ exists in its concrete “objectivity” as the presence of Christ in the world into which believers are incorporated and by which they, through their corporate existence in Christ, exist in unity with each other. While the term may be metaphorical in use, it connotes a realistic understanding of the corporate unity among believers.

Third. as the body of Christ, the Church is the eschatological entity of which He is the Head. This imagery of Christ’s headship is developed in both Colossians and Ephesians and adds a dimension to Paul’s understanding of the Church not seen in Romans or Corinthians. The Church is still the body (Eph. 1:23; 4:12); believers are members of the body (Eph. 5:30), which is maintained through the work of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3; Col. 3:15); and unified in Christ (Eph. 2:14ff). But a new concept is introduced: Christ as the Head of the body. As Head, He has been given the Church as His Body (Eph. 1:22ff). As Head, He has all spiritual gifts at his disposal (4:8ff). The Church, as body, has fellowship with Him as its Head (Eph. 5:23; Col. 1:18; 2:19; cf. v. 10). The Church is to understand itself as His body and grow into fulness of its position in Him (Eph. 4:12f).

The full meaning of headship is developed in Eph. 1:22f and illustrated analogically in 5:21–33. After delineating the exalted position of the risen Lord “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion … not only this age but also in that which is to come,” Christ is declared to be “head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all” (1:21–23). Moreover, that headship is illustrated by the analog of the marriage relationship — the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church. The emphasis here is the unity of the one flesh of husband and wife. Just so, the unity of Christ as Head with the Church as body is the identification of the Church with Christ’s mission in the world.

Paul treats this identification in two ways. In Ephesians the purpose of Christ’s redemptive work is the creation of “one new man” (2:15) and the joining of two into “one flesh” (5:31), of which Paul says, “This is great mystery, and I take it to mean Christ and the church” (v 32). Moreover, in Colossians Christ is said to have “fulness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority” (2:10). This “head” undoubtedly refers to the same headship of the body, the Church, mentioned in 1:18.

Consequently, three concepts emerge in Paul’s extended treatment of the Church:

·        the Head as the source and sustenance of the body;

·        His rule over “all rule and authority and power and dominion”; and

·        consequently, this rule in and through His presence in the world as His body, the Church.

The Church may be said, then, to be the self-manifestation of Christ in the world, the body through which the Spirit extends the presence of Christ.

This concept is strengthened by a consideration of the meaning of “fulness” (pleµ�roµma) in Eph. 1:23, “the fulness of him who fills all in all.” While subject to much debate, the passage seems to teach that it is Christ who “fills all in all” and that He does this through “His body.” This establishes a dynamic unilateral relation between Christ as Head and the Church as body. This relation establishes Christ as the power who works in the world to subdue all things and alsot he cosmic role ascribed to the Church. The Church is to do the work of Christ, to stand against the attacks of the evil powers (Eph. 4:15f). This it can do only as Christ fills it with His presence and power by the Spirit to do His redemptive work.

As surely as Christ is seen working cosmically in the world, so He works through His body, the Church. He who gave His body for the world now through His body still works redemptively in the world. As Christ’s kingdom in the world in the present age must be viewed proleptically as eschatological, so must His “agency” of penetration of the evil age, His body the Church, be viewed as an eschatological entity.

Care must be taken, however, not to confer on the Church an inborn authority or nature that it does not have. The Church is always the body of Christ, always conjoined with Christ as His body. Its dynamic character as the activity of Christ is always functional, and always as the present ministry of Christ.[1]