IN ACCORDANCE TO THE FELLOWSHIP we live in Christ, the fellowship of suffering, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and sitting on the right hand of the Father, and acceptance of our divine inheritance according to this complete and integrated fellowship in the present and future, the Apostle Paul through inspiration says that Christ as head of the new body of man is inevitably head over everything of the Church which is His body.

In other words, the Church formed of individuals1 are the members of Christ’s body. Every believer in Christ is counted as having become a member in the body of Christ through holy baptism, anointment, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and participating in the holy Eucharist. The Bible gives another beautiful description to whoever has been baptized and become sanctified that he: “put on Christ.”2 It is a living expression meaning that no more is there a part of man’s body bare or uncovered to the devil, but the whole of the body has become Christ’s.

 

That everything which exists should be under His feet means that there no more exists anything not subject to Him, because the last enemy in existence is death. Christ abolished death by His death and annulled everything leading to death away from Christ.

Christ becoming Head to the Church is the actual result because it is He who led the Church in the procession of His victory while rising to Heaven, bearing all the believers who denied the world and became sons of God bearing the righteousness of God through the justification of the Son.

The Apostle Paul attains, through a lofty vision, seeing believers as members of the resurrected living body of Christ. In another place he adds to the relation that ties us to Christ mentioning fantastic words for the understanding of a man who has not yet attained the degree of revelation by saying that we are of the flesh and bones of Christ3. Thus the permeation reaches a degree beyond understanding, man cannot come close to unless he has attained the truth. For we are members of Christ because He took us in His body making us live through His life. So what are we? The apostle Paul was perplexed and says: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”4

If we have become members in the body of Christ then we have occupied the body of Christ, but the body of Christ is living and He is life. We therefore become living in Christ, nay Christ is alive in us.

But in the Divine body of Christ was full divinity bodily, thus we inevitably became filled in Him and fellows of His full divinity. The Apostle Paul compared Him to a bridegroom and the Church as the bride presented to Christ5; the bride being us when we are in the fullness of faith, love and fellowship.

It is known that with the fullness of divinity of the body of Christ we are filled with His fullness6, and the Divine fullness of the body of Christ has practically become the only Divine intermediary that brings us before Him filled with the Holy Spirit. Even the subjection of everything to Christ is a preliminary to subjecting everything also to us. When He subjected everything He handed over everything to the Church subjected to her. Although the Church prevailed through the free righteousness Christ gave her yet she prevailed over everything when Christ subjected everything under His body and handed over His extreme victory to the Church.

Theologically it is said that the body of Christ was filled with divinity to offer the Church that fullness to everyone who had faith, believed and demanded his right in the Divine fullness of the body of Christ through the justification of the free fellowship offered to believers with the fullness of divinity with which the Church was filled.

The body of Christ became the fullness which fills all, to everyone who has faith, believes, and demands his right to everlasting life.

Prayer

After the devil humiliated us and made us a creation of slaves, with death our master,

You, O Jesus Christ, untied us from the shame of slavery for us to boast our being Your children.

The difference is extremely wide, boggling the mind, from being slaves to sons,

From being banned out of the presence of God to being close as saints in the fullness of love,

From being void of the righteousness of God, to owners of God’s righteousness without cost.

Thus after being imprisoned in darkness, the light of eternity shone upon us.

After taking care of swine, God trusted us with preaching (the gospel) to His sons,

In short, we removed the ancient man and put on the new, daily renewed in the image of the Creator.

July 12, 2005

 

3 Note Eph 5:30.

4 Gal 2:20.

5 Note 2Cor 11:2.

6 Note John 1:16; Col 2:10.  

 

 

1 Note 1Cor 12:27.

2 Note Gal 3:27.  

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