The Body of Christ

 The Spirit works to make God’s salvation — the transformation of our hearts and minds, conforming us to the image of Jesus — a reality in our lives. The Spirit helps us grow up emotionally-relationally-spiritually (Ephesians 4:13-15). The biblical word for this process of transformation is sanctification (2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 6:22; 2 Thessalonians 2:13).

The ultimate and inevitable outcome of this transformation of our hearts and minds is the ability to love as Jesus loved. As we grow emotionally-relationally-spiritually, how we view and relate to others changes. In transforming us, the Spirit transforms how we live in relationship with one another. The result is spiritual community. The Spirit’s work in us produces spiritual community with others. We call this spiritual community “the church.” Paul spoke of it as the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).

Paul’s metaphor of the body of Christ communicates two essential elements in genuine spiritual community: unity — one body; diversity — many parts of the body. The theological term used to describe such community is unity in diversity producing community.

Unity in diversity describes the pattern of relationship found among the members of the Godhead — Father, Son, Spirit. Their oneness lies in their shared character of self-giving, servant love. How that love is lived out is different for each, shaped by the uniqueness of each. Each gives freely and generously of self to the other, for the other. In God’s eternal redemptive purpose (Ephesians 1:3-14), each gives freely and generously of self to us.

When the church is a spiritual community, it reflects the life of the Godhead, the life for which we were created — unity in diversity. Such spiritual communities are always Spirit-designed and Spirit-empowered. They are the product of the Spirit’s work in us, through us, and among us. 

When the church is a spiritual community, it is “a holy temple … a dwelling place for God” (Ephesians 2:21-22). It is an in-the-flesh expression of God's ways — the ways of the Kingdom. It offers the community in which it lives an alternative way of living in relationship. 

Apart from the Spirit’s transforming work, churches are seldom more than a human-designed, human-created institution. Rather than reflecting the life and community for which God created us, they duplicate the ways of the culture in which they live. They are homogeneous rather than diverse. They function out of sameness rather than oneness. As such, they are vulnerable to conflict and division because they do not know how to deal with the diversity that is an inherent part of life.

Authentic spiritual community is the product of the Spirit’s work.