The Church – The Body of Christ

St. Paul wrote of the mystery that had been hidden throughout the ages: the mystery of the Body of Christ. He called the Body of Christ the Church. God the Father gave Jesus to be the Head of the “Church, which is His Body” (Eph. 2:22-23). Those who believe in Jesus can be baptized into His Body and made members (hands, feet, etc.) of His Body (1 Cor. 12:13-27). They are “to grow up in every way into Him Who is the Head, from Whom the whole Body makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love, when each part is working properly” (Eph. 4:15-16).

The Body of Christ is also called the Bride of Christ (Rev. 18:23, 21:2). A man chooses a bride to be his wife as long as he lives. Jesus Christ seeks His Bride, who will live with Him forever. As a wife, she is to subject herself to her husband. So the Church obeys Jesus Christ, Who is “the Head of the Church…. Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish.” Thus she is compared to a bride at her wedding (Eph. 5:23-27).

When the Son of God came down from Heaven to do His Father’s Will on Earth, He needed a body. He said to the Father, “Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a BODY hast Thou prepared Me” (Hebrews 10:5). Jesus offered His physical body, which the Father gave Him at His birth, to do God’s Will. Jesus said, “Lo, I come to do Thy Will, O God” (vv. 7-9), “by the which Will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all” (v. 10). As God prepared Jesus’ physical body for this work of Redemption, so He is preparing the Body of Christ to be an instrument of His Will on Earth.

Many Members—One Body

How are the members of the Body of Christ, as we come together for worship or ministry, to move in the Spirit and to operate the spiritual gifts? The highest goal in both worship and ministry is to glorify Jesus and edify His Body (1 Cor. 14:12, 26). “How is it then, brethren? (that is, the whole church, 1 Cor. 14:23) when ye come together, everyone of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let ALL things be done unto edifying” (v. 26).

By more than inference we therefore understand it is not the case of a single individual ministering, but the whole church: the members of His Body in unity.

St. Paul explained the essentials of a Spirit-led service: psalms or spiritual songs, that is, spiritual worship; doctrine, which is the solid teaching of the whole counsel of God; tongues with interpretation (which equal prophecy), lifting the service to higher spiritual realms until at last revelation comes forth. Revelation is a further unveiling of truths that had been hidden; this may mean more light on Scripture given to the Church.

All members of the Body participate in the service, each contributing his part, “for as we have many members in one body, all members have not the same office; so we, being many are one Body in Christ, and everyone members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth, on teaching” (Rom. 12:4-7). This Scripture teaches us clearly that we are to wait on one another and not to go beyond the measure of faith we have or the unction of the Holy Spirit. It is just as important to know when and where to start as it is to know when and where to stop, lest the Holy Spirit be grieved and quenched.

Since our Lord knows our spiritual needs perfectly, He will supply them in each service accordingly. That is to say, by the end of each service, the church will have received whatever it needed—be it teaching, rebuke, comfort, admonition, exhortation, or revelation. There could be a whole service of spiritual worship and adoration to the King of kings. Those who are filled with the Holy Spirit will at all times accept the spiritual direction of the elders watching zealously for the good of the whole flock. It is not only essential to be tuned, that is, to be in harmony with the Holy Spirit, but also to be timed and to move and allow the spirit to manifest the gift at the appropriate time. Thus, from the beginning of the service to the end, the Holy Spirit will develop a theme of such perfection that all parts of the service are woven and blended into His perfect plan and pattern. The songs and prayers as well as the prophetic or doctrinal messages are needed. Each service, then, will be blessedly different from others because He always moves in new and fresh ways.

There are nine gifts of the Holy Spirit which can be manifested during the service. (They are listed in 1 Cor. 12:8-10.) These gifts divide into three groups each, according to their nature:

Revelation gifts: the gift of the word of wisdom, the gift of the word of knowledge, and the gifts of discernment of spirits.
Utterance gifts: the gift of prophecy, the gift of tongues, and the gift of interpretation and tongues.
Power gifts: the gift of faith, the gift of miracles, and the gifts of healings.

The gift of the word of knowledge is the God-given ability to bring forth a word of knowledge, that is, revelation concerning a person or a thing or a situation one could not humanly know anything about. The word of knowledge is always given to help a person or to build up the church.

The gift of the word of wisdom is the God-given ability to bring forth a word of wisdom, that is, specific revelation on how to handle a difficult situation. The word of knowledge and the word of wisdom can accompany one another. That is, the Holy Spirit may give the word of knowledge to a person and also show him how to apply it to the situation at the critical moment.

The gift of discernment of spirits is the God-given ability to detect the presence and ascertain the identity of spirits, both of the Spirit of God and evil spirits.

The gift of prophecy is the God-given ability to bring forth a message from the Lord for edifying, exhorting, or comforting the Body. Prophecy is as much “news” to the one who prophesies as to those who listen. The gift of tongues is the God-given ability to speak in various languages otherwise unknown to the speaker. The gift of interpretation of tongues is the God-given ability to interpret, that is, to bring forth the sum and substance of what has been spoken in an unknown tongue. The operation of the last two gifts is equal to the gift of prophecy.

The gift of faith is the God-given ability to believe for the humanly impossible to come to pass. The gift of the working of miracles is the God-given ability to perform a miracle, that is, something which is entirely contrary to the laws of nature. The gifts of healing are God-given abilities to heal various diseases.

You might ask where these gifts were operating in the first New Testament church. Immediately after the first believers were baptized in the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, they exercised the gifts: Jews from fifteen foreign nations who had come to Jerusalem heard the preaching of the word in their own language because the disciples spoke in other tongues. Later at the Gate Beautiful, Peter and John exercised the gift of faith and the gift of miracles to heal the lame man who had been begging at the temple gate all his life.

Gifts in Operation

In Acts 5, we find Peter using five of the gifts of the Holy Spirit to handle a problem in the church. Through the gift of discernment of spirits, he detected and identified lying spirits in Ananias and Sapphira which made them lie to the Holy Spirit. Through the gift of the word of knowledge, Peter knew that Ananias and his wife Sapphira had agreed to keep back part of the price of the land. He could not possibly have known about this secret agreement. The way Peter handled Ananias and especially his wife, when she came in three hours later, shows the use of the gift of the word of wisdom. Peter prophesied their end. The prophecy was fulfilled instantly. The operation of the gift of faith is most clearly seen in Peter’s faith that the miracle of Ananias’ sudden death was to be repeated with Sapphira. The effect of the use of these gifts was the purification of the Church, “and of the rest durst no man join himself to them; but the people magnified them” (Acts 5:13).

Just as the Holy Spirit has given nine gifts to the Body of Christ, the Lord has also given men to His Church who are endued with the ministries of the Holy Spirit. For this purpose, “the Lord gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, pastors and teacher; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, FOR THE EDIFYING OF THE BODY OF CHRIST” (Eph. 4:11, 12).

Therefore, it is essential that all these five ministries be exercised in the Church if the Body of Christ is to be perfected.

From the Greek it can be ascertained that there are either four or five ministries, depending on whether the last two are taken together or not. (The King James Version is literal even in the Greek parallelism.) What is the nature of these ministries?

Apostles (Greek: sent one; the equivalent comes from the Latin: missionary.) An apostle should have all nine gifts of the Holy Spirit. His ministry is itinerant. He establishes churches as a pioneer of the Gospel. As for the other ministries, place and time of service are decided by the Holy Spirit. The vast responsibility of an apostle is plainly shown in Acts 11:36 and 2 Cor. 11:28.

Prophets (Greek: interpreter of divine revelation, foreteller; but not, as often claimed, forthteller in the simple sense.) A prophet is a forthteller of God’s mysteries revealed to him. Like Agabus (Acts 11:28; 21:10), a prophet is to warn the church of coming events, to exhort, edify, and comfort the churches. He also interprets world events from God’s point of view.

Evangelists (Greek: herald of good news). These ministers have the special gift of bringing in souls at large through preaching (heralding) the good news with convicting power. Philip, for example, was God’s instrument for causing mass conversion in Samaria (Acts 8:5). How sensitive each minister must be to the guidance of the Holy Spirit is illustrated in Acts 8:26-40, when Philip left the great revival in Samaria to go to the desert—a seemingly foolish thing to do. And yet Philip’s obedience to the Lord was richly rewarded by the Master with the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch.

Pastors (Greek: shepherd). The Chief Shepherd Jesus Christ has set under-shepherds in the Church. Psalm 23 and John 10 explain beautifully the duties of a shepherd. The word pastors occurs in the sense of a ministry but once in the entire New Testament, in Eph. 4:11. To burden one single man—our modern so-called pastor—with all the affairs of the Church and expect of him a performance of all the ministries and duties is to demand the impossible. It shows how far out of God’s Will and order modern denominations are.

Teachers. They teach revealed truths from the Scripture and expound sound doctrine on the Scriptures on which the Holy Spirit is shedding light as the Church grows and matures and as the Plan of God moves on. Their ministry is not preaching.

Note that all ministries are in the plural. The men endued with the ministries are gifts to the church. The Holy Spirit ordains them. Because of their nature, none of these ministries can be confined permanently to one local church. The Holy Spirit designates place and duration of service.

Have you wondered where this New-Testament-patterned, Holy-Spirit-governed Church we have been writing about can be found? Everyone who understands the signs of our time and true prophetic ministry of our day is convinced that the Body of Christ shall manifest itself by the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of Power in the very near future.

At the time when Jesus was born, the wise men from the East had a true vision. They journeyed by faith and diligently sought the Christ. The prophetic word supported their vision (Matt. 2:5, 6). Likewise, the shepherds did not question the angelic announcement of Jesus’ birth but went to Bethlehem in order “to see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us” (Luke 2:15).

In both instances, those who had the vision found the Christ only because they moved out by faith. In our time, there are those who understand the vision of the Body of Christ through the Word and prophecy. They too must arise by faith and seek earnestly the fitting together of the members of the Body of Christ… “till we all come to 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” (Eph. 4:13).