What is the Body of Christ? According to 1 Cor. 12:12-13, the Body of Christ is the corporate Christ, Christ the Head with Christ the Body, and the way we are part of this Body is by drinking the Spirit to be constituted with the element of Christ.
How wonderful it is to see a vision of the Body of Christ according to the divine revelation in God’s word!
The church as the Body of Christ was revealed in type from the very first book of the Bible, in Gen. 2:22-23, when God built Eve out of the rib He took from Adam and brought her to him to be his counterpart.
Adam is a type of Christ and Eve is a type of the church; on the cross Christ was “put to sleep” by God, and from Him something issued out and was built to become the church, His counterpart, His bride.
When Christ “woke up” in resurrection, He saw the joy set before Him – He saw the church obtained with His precious blood, and He rejoiced.
Oh, the happiness and rejoicing in Adam’s heart when he finally saw Eve, who was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh! Oh, the joy in the Lord’s heart when He produced the church, bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh!
The church is a product completely out of Christ, and only what is of Christ can be the church. What is our natural man has no place in the church; what is of our natural being has no place in the Body of Christ.
Only what is of Christ is the church as the Body of Christ, just as only what is our being is part of our body, our human body.
We need to become the Body of Christ in reality to express Him, and the way we do this is not by having more methods or organisation but by the addition of the element of Christ to our being.
The more we are made Christ by having Christ constituted into our being, the more we are the Body of Christ in reality. The more we are inwardly being replaced and reconstituted with Christ, the more we express Him as His Body, His corporate expression.
There is only one thing in a believer that forms part of the Body of Christ – Christ. The measure of Christ that is wrought into us and constituted into our inner being is the measure in which we are in the Body of Christ and we express Christ.
Praise the Lord, God is constituting us with Christ day by day so that we can become the Body of Christ, the church, His corporate expression on earth!
The Body of Christ is the Corporate Christ – Christ and the Church are “the Christ”
In 1 Cor. 12:12 we see a mysterious picture and description of the Body of Christ; even as the human body has many members, yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ.
In Greek this last portion emphatically says, “the Christ”, not just “Christ”. In other words, Christ here refers not just to the Head but also the Body, the Body-Christ, the corporate Christ.
In the Bible Christ refers sometimes to the individual Christ and at other times to the corporate Christ, the Body-Christ, for the Bible considers Christ as mysterious yet universally vast being composed of Christ (the Head) and the church (the Body of Christ).
Through regeneration we have been born into the kingdom of God by having the divine life implanted in our spirit, and our spirit became enlivened; what happened at this time is that our spirit became part of the Body of Christ.
Christ was joined to us at the time of our regeneration to make us part of His universal Body, and we became part of the corporate Christ – Christ the Head and Christ the Body joined together.
Individually speaking, we are members of the Body (1 Cor. 12:27), and corporately speaking, we are the mystical Body of Christ. All the saved ones in all times and in all space added together become the Body of this mysterious Christ, the corporate Christ.
“The Christ” in 1 Cor. 12:12 refers to the corporate Christ, composed of Christ Himself as the Head and the church as His Body with all the believers as its members.
Hallelujah, as believers in Christ we have been organically joined to the Lord and we are being constituted with His life and element to become His Body to express Him!
At the time of our regeneration we received His life and nature, and as we daily grow in life and drink of the Spirit into whom we have been baptised, we become His Body, a universal organism for the Triune God to be expressed and manifested on the earth.
Just as the vine includes not only the stalk but also the branches, so the corporate Christ – the Body-Christ – includes not only Christ Himself but also us all, the believers in Christ as the members of the Body of Christ.
We believers in Christ are members of the Body of Christ – we are parts of Christ, and the Christ who is wrought into us and who is being constituted into our being makes us part of Him.
According to our natural constitution, we cannot be parts of Christ, for we are fallen, natural, and sinful; but praise the Lord, in our mingled spirit we are members of Christ, and as our spirit spreads into our inner being, we become parts of Christ to express Him as the Body of Christ! Amen!
For us to be parts of Christ, as members of His Body, we must have Christ wrought into our being.
Thank You Lord for regenerating us with Your life to make us members of the Body of Christ, part of the corporate Christ! Hallelujah, in our mingled spirit we are members of the corporate Christ, parts of Christ, expressing Him and manifesting Him on the earth! Lord, we open to You and we want to give You our best cooperation so that You may work Yourself into us more so that our whole being would be saturated with You and constituted with Your element for the Body of Christ. Amen, Lord, for the sake of the Body, saturate us, permeate us, and constitute Yourself into all our inner being!
Being Constituted of Christ to be His Body by Drinking the Spirit
In order for Christ to become a corporate Christ, the Body-Christ, He had to pass through a process; He, the very God, became flesh for our redemption, and in resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit to come into us.
Now as the life-giving Spirit Christ can impart and infuse Himself into all those who willingly receive Him, so that He may gain an increase, a reproduction, a continuation, and a duplication.
As we receive the Lord’s life through repentance and regeneration, we become part of the Body-Christ, and the Lord is being enlarged for His expression.
The church can be the Body of Christ only as we, the members of the Body, are constituted with Christ, possessing His life and His nature.
If we look at our physical body, we realise that every part of our body has our life and nature; similarly, every part of the Body of Christ has His life and His nature.
How can we become Christ, that is, be filled with Christ and constituted of His element, so that we may be members of the Body of Christ, expressing Him?
The reality of Christ is the Spirit, and we have been baptised in one Body into one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13); we have been put into the best position to drink of the Spirit.
The Body of Christ has been formed by the baptism in the one spirit; on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius the Body of Christ was formed, and the church came into being. Praise the Lord, in one Spirit we have all been baptised into one Body!
This has put us into the best position for us to drink of the Spirit, and by drinking of the Spirit we are constituted with Christ to be the Body of Christ. So what we need to do today and every day is continue to drink the Spirit!
By drinking the Spirit we experience the dispensing of the Divine Trinity into our being and we are constituted to be the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ builds itself up by our being constituted with Christ; the Body is an organic entity constituted of the divine element of the processed Triune God, and when we drink the Spirit, we become the corporate Christ a little more.
What the Body of Christ needs is not more teachings, more doctrines, more organisation, or more regulations; what the Body needs is more constitution with Christ, more addition of the divine element into our being through drinking of the one Spirit.
We need to have more of Christ wrought into our inner being through our drinking of the one Spirit!
The more we drink the one Spirit, the more the divine element becomes our constituent to make us the corporate Christ, the Body of Christ.
We need to exercise our spirit, drink the Spirit, and allow the Lord to work Himself into us and constitute us with His element.
We may even ask Him to do this – it is His desire to gain the church as the fulness of the One who fills all in all, so why not ask Him to fill us, to work Himself into us, and to keep us drinking of the one Spirit until we become the corporate Christ in reality, the Body-Christ!
Lord Jesus, for the sake of Your Body, work Yourself into us and constitute us with Your element. We exercise our spirit, Lord, to drink of You. We exercise our spirit to drink the Spirit, and we allow You, Lord, to work Yourself into our being a little more every day. Keep us under Your divine dispensing day by day. Keep us drinking the Spirit even as we are baptised in the Spirit. Amen, Lord, what a wonderful position we have to be saturated with Christ for the Body of Christ, the corporate Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by the brothers for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 212 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living in the Reality of the Body of Christ by Keeping the Principles of the Body (2019 ICSC), week 2, The Oneness of the Body and the Function of the Body.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Not the individual Christians, / but a corporate entity— / God must have it for His full expression now; / Not just individual churches but the Body corporately— / Hallelujah, we are in the Body now! (Hymns #1226)
# And now the corporate life we live— / Christ in His Body known; / Where every portion adds more Christ, / Until the whole is shown. / O Hallelujah, one new man! / Our portions blend as one; / In one accord, express the Lord, / And He will quickly come. (Hymns #1182)
# The Spirit of life is within us today, / Who’s likened to water our thirst to allay; / Of Him we may drink and be filled thus with Him, / Until as a river He flows from within. (Hymns #278)
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