THE UNITY OF THE BODY.
BY CARRIE F. JUDD
For as the body is one, and hath many
members, as all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also
is Christ. – I Cor. xii: 12.
Why do so many of
us fail to exercise a living faith in calming the fullness of blessing for our
spiritual and physical needs? Is it not because, as members of Christ’s body,
we are not more closely united in His love? “Faith worketh by love,” and surely
if there is any schism between the members of the one body; if we have failed
in being fitly joined together by the love which “every joint” should supply,
then it is impossible for us to know the unity of faith.
The Apostle
writes to the Corinthians, “Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would
not have you ignorant,” and then directly after, as though he would show them
that their ignorance therein was caused by a lack of unity, he proceeds to
instruct them as to their oneness in Christ. Nothing could show us more clearly
the great need of love among the followers of Jesus, that the illustration here
used by the Apostle.
Presenting the
truth that the natural body, though composed of many members, is nevertheless
but one body, he adds, “So also is Christ,” showing in these expressive
words, the wonderful “hope of our calling,” even that Christ’s body, the
Church, is “the fullness of Him which filleth all in all.”-(Eph. i:23)
Blessed mystery!
how our hearts enlarge as we “think on these things.” Again the Scripture shows
us that though the members have a diversity of works, yet all are called to
unity of work in the body. “But now hath God “set the members every
one of them in the body as it hath pleased Him.” We must not only seek to know where God has
“set: us, individually, in Christ’s body, but we must be full of love towards
others who are set in different positions therein. “If they were all one
member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet one body.”
Again we are told
that God hath “tempered the body together,” and that even to the feeblest
member we cannot say, “I have no need of thee.” How slow we are to learn this,
that as members of the one body, we cannot be “complete in Christ” without each
other.
When we do
fully realize this, will it not soften our hearts, strengthen our zeal, and
fill us with loving humility? Shall we not seek with joyful diligence to be
united in love to all who are members of Christ, that there may be no schism in
the body?
Then shall we
acquire the requisite knowledge of those spiritual gifts which are “for the
edifying of the body,” and among these spiritual gifts the apostle mentions
“gifts of healing,” over which very subject so many of the dear members are
consciously ignorant, and longing for more light. Then, in our spiritual
enlightenment, shall we be able to work in harmony with our Head, then only
will our service for Him be the outcome of His own wisdom and abounding life in
our souls and bodies; and not only shall we ourselves know the blessed activity
of His divine energy, but shall have it flowing through us to the vivifying and
strengthening of other enfeebled members.
Then shall we
understand that “the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
withal,” and shall have a clear knowledge of the “diversities of gifts,”
“differences of administrations,” and “diversities of operations,” while we
realize that it is “the same God which worketh all in all.”
But in connection
with this subject of exercising love toward the members, comes the question,
“Are we therefore compelled to overlook or disguise the fact that in many
members there remain blemishes which seem far from being in accordance with
their Christian profession?”
We find a
precious answer to this query, in Eph. iv:15, “That we… speaking the truth n
love may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ:”
not sitting in Pharisaical judgment on those whose life does not seem to accord
with the Spirit of the Master, or seeking to avoid intercourse with them, but
drawing near to them in truth and love, nourishing and cherishing them even as
we would a diseased or feeble member of our own natural body, at the same time
willing to accept the “truth in love” as they may be given it to speak to us,
bearing in mind “that the members should have the same care for another.”
For it is
“according to the effectual working in the measure of every part”
that “the whole body jointed together and compacted by that which every
joint supplieth” “maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of
itself in love.” – (Eph. iv:16.)
The apostle told
the Corinthians because they failed to discern the Lord’s body in the communion
of the bloody and body of Christ, that many were therefore weak and sickly
among them, and many slept (I Cor. ix: 29, 30) and then speaking of Christ’s
body, the Church, he says, “For we being many are one bread, and one body; for
we are all partakers of that one bread.”
If then, by lack
of love we fail to discern Christ’s body in His members, shall we not fall into
the same condemnation, and shall not many of us, therefore, be weak and sickly
and many sleep?
Let us “pray for
one another,” beloved, that we may “all come in 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 fullness of Christ,” and that His love may constrain us to obey
the injunction of the inspired apostle:
