Inducted Into One Body

Along with the confusion there is about real and full salvation, there is much confusion about the Church. In too great a way, it has been left to men and women to decide where they want to go and what they want to do about the Church. The message of the Church is just as positive as the message of salvation, and the message of the Church coincides one hundred percent with the message of salvation.

If we're truly saved and let the Holy Spirit direct us, sooner or later we're going to come in contact with the truth of God's word that deals with the unity of His people. Just as He gave us the call to come out of sin and be separate from sin, if we live for God and let the Holy Spirit direct our life, we're going to hear another call: "Come out of her [false religious confusion], my people." It's a vital truth, and just as it is with every bit of truth that we obey, it rejoices our heart. There's a message on the Church, but if we've never seen it and never obeyed it, there's joy and rejoicing in store for us if we'll heed God's eternal Word.

The initial work of salvation does a greater work on the hearts and lives of men and women than they understand and know about. I look back now, and you can look back, too, if you're very mature in the things of God, and see that God did more for us than we realized.

Paul used the perfect metaphor when he used the human body to picture the Church. The Church that Jesus built, the Church of the living God, is a living organism with many members, every one of them controlled by one Spirit. The word organism actually means, "the whole, consisting of parts that exist and work each for all and all for each."

Let's study about this "one body" Paul talked about. First of all, he was talking about the experience of salvation---that experience which makes us new creatures, and he uses the term, "one body," because salvation gives us an experience that is just alike. "For [the reason] by one Spirit are we all baptized [or submerged, not in water, but in a spiritual baptism that inducts us or brings into one spiritual body, the body of Christ, or the Church] into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free [Galatians 3:21 adds male or female]; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13).

We emphasize that right in the initial experience of salvation, when people come in repentance, confessing their sins and God takes the sinful heart out of them and puts a new heart in them, they're made to drink in one Spirit. When Jesus met the woman at the well, He told her, "If you would ask me, I would give you a drink and you would never thirst again, and that drink that I give you will be in you a well of water springing up into everlasting life." This is not something to pour on us or take with us. It gets IN us!

John 7:38-39 makes it very plain: "He that believeth on me [Jesus Christ], as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)" But ever since Christ has been glorified, ever since the day of Pentecost, no one has to tarry for the Spirit. Nowhere in the Bible can we read, since Acts the first chapter, that anyone needs to tarry to get the Holy Spirit. The word tarry was used by Jesus when He said, "Tarry in the city of Jerusalem till you be endued with power from on high." They had to tarry and wait because it was not yet given, but when the day of Pentecost fully came, God gave the Spirit, not just to them, but He said He would pour it out on all flesh everywhere.

Since the day of Pentecost, anyone who truly meets God's conditions, yields his life, and lets Him take away the sin, God cleanses him of all unrighteousness, makes a new temple out of him, and the Holy Spirit enters right in. That Spirit within him is a well of water which not only will satisfy him, but will also cause rivers of water to flow out of his life and make him a blessing to many others.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:13 that by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body and have been made to drink into one Spirit. Through a born-again experience, drinking in of "one Spirit", we become a member, or a part, of the body of Christ, the Church. We don't become a member of the Kingdom and wait to get into the Church. On the other hand, we don't become a member of the Church and get a Kingdom experience later on. There's no difference. The door to the Kingdom is the same door to the Church---Jesus Christ is the door to both of them. Furthermore, an experience of Bible repentance opens the door and lets us in. We get in by a spiritual induction. We are inducted into one spiritual body, and we become a member of the body of Christ.

One Body, Many Members

Note from Jerry: I feel I need to make a couple of comments regarding the following. First, I confess, I can't judge what the true intentions of the pastor who preached the following, however, the thought came to mind that a minister can use what is true to control "the flock". If the truth is used for the wrong purpose or motive, it surely can have a negative effect or results. We thank God for the truth but we need to be careful how we use it. Okay, that's it...just wanted to share that. You may not agree...and that's okay too!

One Body, Many Members

No matter where a man or a woman is born again, he is spiritually inducted into the body of Christ. That's a definite, vital truth, but there's more to it than that. Let's read 1 Corinthians 12:14, "For the body is not one member, but many." We're a member of the body, but we're not the whole body. We are just one member of it, and we need to start hunting the other members. 1 Corinthians 12:15-17 sets it forth so beautifully. "It the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?" Paul took a natural body with many members, and every one of these members is a part of the body. No one of them can say that it is the body, because it is just a part of a body.

If people could only understand the simple teachings of God's Word, they wouldn't camp in salvation and say, "I am in. I have it made." We just got into something that a whole lot of other people are in, and God wants us to hunt them up so He can get the body together and get it comfortable.

Read carefully verses 15 through 17. In the body , there are many members, and each member has its own office. In the Church, each Christian has his own gift, which he holds for the benefit of the whole Church. 1Corinthians 12:7 reads, "But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." Whatever God has endowed us with, He didn't give it to us to bless only us or ours. It was given to be used to bless the whole Church. Also, every individual member has his own limitations, and he needs the help of the gift of some other Christians.

The gifts were passed out severally (1 Corinthians 12:11). God didn't give any one of us all of them. God fixed it this way on purpose. Verses 15 through 17 let us understand that isolation is not the law of Christian life. God doesn't lead anybody to isolate himself or become tied up in employment or anything else so that he cannot get with the body of Christ, the Church. If you are alive, and you possess the Holy Spirit, and any of these attributes are being manifested in your life, a congregation of the Church needs you there for that manifestation; and not only do they need you there, but you need to be there to gain the manifestation of the Spirit working through them. We need the help of other believers, and we will never get to the depth that God wants us without going God's way. Christ sends His blessing to one person through another person.

There may be circumstances beyond our control that would isolate us for a period of time---and it will be a short period, if God has anything to do with it---but if we stay in an isolated position and get the idea, "I am drawing all my blessing from God," we will die spiritually right while we are drawing. Certainly, there are blessings that God allows to fall right straight on us as an individual, but His ordained plan is for us to be blessed through others and for them to be blessed through us.

God in His wisdom knew we wouldn't make it all alone. God didn't leave Daniel in the lions' den alone except overnight. He got him out and let him get back with the boys. Isolation is not in God's plan. God sends the big end of His blessings that He wants us to enjoy through another brother or sister, and when we obey Him, He uses us to bless somebody else. It's God's ordained way for men and women to grow in the things of the Spirit.

When that light shone down on the Apostle Paul, there was enough power there to save him and seven hundred and fifty other Jews, but God would not do it. He sent Paul into the city and told him He would send someone to him.

Spiritual Fornication

Man has "churches of their choice." Sad as it may be, many that have been truly born again and baptized into one body have joined a church because the preacher said that we need a church home. 1 Corinthians 6:15 calls that spiritual fornication: "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid."

What kind of harlot are they joined to? Let's go to Revelation, Chapter 17, and read the first five verses. We will see the mother church there pictured as a whore, sitting on a scarlet-colored beast, and her daughters are all harlots, picturing the Roman Catholic Church and the many Protestant organizations that the Bible calls harlot bodies which are joined. We are a member of Christ if we are born again, and there's no Biblical reason to join a spiritual harlot body.

Divided Members

In Ezekiel, Chapter 37, we will see a picture of divided Christians and what happens to the members of Christ when one religious leader gets them to join "this" church and another gets them to join "that" church. Verse 11 states in part, "...we are cut off for our parts." In other words we are divided members. They were a part of a body, but the body couldn't function because some of the members were over there, some of the members are down there, etc.

God told Ezekiel to preach to them. He began to preach to them, and you know what happened to them? There was a rattle, a moving. The preached Word moved them, and then Ezekiel prayed, "...Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these...," and when the breath of God breathed on them, they came together and stood up, a mighty army moving forth for God.

False religion divides God's people and cuts us off from our members. In that condition, we are not allowed to help each other. With all the talents God has given us, we cannot bless each other. Why? We're not in contact with our brothers and sisters, other members that belong to God even as we do.

2 Corinthians 6:14-15 lets us know what a condition exists in false religion. Paul's not talking about marriage here, because he wrote in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 7, that if we have an unbelieving companion, stay with him or her, but here he said to come out from among them. He's talking about something else. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?"

When God's people get separated, cut off from their part, they are trying to labor in the religious organization, where the greatest percentage of the people are unbelievers and never have been born again. God's members want to live holy and righteously, but the goats run the place because there are more goats than sheep. The sheep will say, "Let's have more prayer meetings," and the goats say, "Let's have more ice cream socials." I'm still on the thought of being cut off from our part. The Scripture says, "What part hath he that believeth..." What fellowship can flow between believers and unbelievers? Fellowship is divine. Fellowship is for God's people.

The Apostle Paul went on to write in 2 Corinthians 6:17, "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing..." God sees the members wherever they are yoked up. He takes the Word and the Spirit and lays hold of them and says, "Come out of her, my people." He calls them out of the many organizations, and when He calls them out, He sets them in a visible working body of the Church that he purchased with His own blood.

Each member Is necessary

Note from Jerry: I feel I need to make a couple of comments regarding the following. First, I confess, I can't judge what the true intentions of the pastor who preached the following, however, the thought came to mind that a minister can use what is true to control "the flock". If the truth is used for the wrong purpose or motive, it surely can have a negative effect or results. We thank God for the truth but we need to be careful how we use it. I get confused when one is "jumping around" in teaching...from spiritual to physical to spiritual and back to physical, again...but serious.

Okay, that's it...just wanted to share that. You may not agree...and that's okay too!

Each Member Is Necessary

Paul compares the Church to the human body in 1 Corinthians 12:18-27: "But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked: That there would be no schism (a schism is a split because of a difference in doctrine) in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."

The word particular means that we are really showing that we are a part of a body when we won't separate. Taking the natural body to show us the body of Christ, the Church, and the attitude between the members Paul didn't say that the eye will not say, but he said that the eye cannot say it does not need another part of the body. Our many bodily members are all tempered to one body , and the very nature of the body lets us understand that we need strength from the other members of we cannot live.

For instance, if my hand were to be cut off and laid aside, it is just as much a member of my body as it always was, but it will wither, die, and corrupt. Why? Because it can only function as a hand by that which the rest of the body supplies.

We have learned this vital truth. There are no individual members anymore, but we are a part of the body when we have been brought together. We may have lived in an independent manner for a while when we didn't know any better, but if we read Romans, Chapter 12, when we have heard the truth of God's Word, and have been called out of Babylon (religious confusion), and brought together and tempered together through the work of God's Word and the Holy Spirit, we will realize that we are not only members of Christ now, but we are members one of another. Individual members lose their identity.

Notice the words Paul used. he said that the eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you." It would just be a very short time till I would go blind if I didn't have any hands. Why? Who is going to get the dirt out of my eye? Who is going to take care of my eyes? He said that they cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you." The only way your head goes anywhere is if your feet take it. We are not only members of Christ, we are members one of another. I would to God He would put a fear in us against independent spirits! If there is any cutting off, let the other one do it. Let's stay with the body. That's where the life lies.

When one member of the body suffers, all the members suffer with it. A particle of dust in the eye, the pulsing nerve in one of the smallest teeth, a sprain in the ankle, etc., take all the beauty out of living. We can plan the biggest picnic there ever was for the Fourth of July, but just wake up with a big headache and we're not going to have any picnic, no matter where we go. We don't separate the members of the body. Our little finger gets mashed, and that fellow spreads pain through the whole body. We don't say, "Pray for me. My finger is in pain." We say, "I have a pain in my finger." It's affecting us all over. It may be in our finger that is mashed, but our head will thump and our stomach will want to vomit. Why? Because we are a body, and when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

I think we get the spiritual lesson. It's not good for man to be alone. No saint is self-contained. God in His whole plan of salvation leads us in a way that definitely works against selfishness. We cannot be a Christian and be self-contained. The first thing God does, He puts us in families so that we learn that we have to share. Then He brings us right on into the spiritual realm in the Church and sets us in a body with maybe a hundred members around, and ninety-nine get to have their way before we do, again.

There must be room in our heart for God and others. If there's not, we're not a Christian. That's the moral law from the very beginning---loving God with our whole heart, soul, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. Selfishness is nasty. Selfishness is never worthy of praise. We don't want to have a banquet for someone because he's the most selfish man in town, do we? We loath selfishness, especially if it's in someone else. (There is something about us there, too, that we need help on. We can see a little fox in our neighbor's garden three miles down the road and can't see a bear in our own.)

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:21-24 that there are parts of the natural body that are less comely. They are not out where you can see them, but they are necessary, and many times more necessary, then some others. He was talking about the heart, the lungs, the stomach, and so forth. We don't wash our stomach and comb its hair. It's a lot less honorable than the head, the eyes, the hands, or the feet. We never have had to buy any shoes for our stomach yet. It just works. We want our eyes to be pretty and our hair fixed right and our shoes on our feet all shined up, but don't forget that there are some less honorable members that are very necessary. We can get both hands cut off and keep on going, but if our heart were cut out, we wouldn't last very long.

Where are the less honorable members in the visible body of Christ, the Church? They are those members that we may never see up front, singing. We may never see them preaching. We don't hear too much out of them, but they are regular, faithful, and on the job. They are prayer warriors. We may come into a congregation and never know their names for three months. But they're necessary. In fact, they're the ones that keep the thing going. Nobody sees them. They hardly get an applause. Some of them are behind the kitchen door during campmeeting, or cleaning rest room, etc.

We're tied together. We can't get along without each other. We're not only members of Christ, be we are members one of another. As it is with the natural body, when one member is hurt, we feel it. When one member is honored, the whole body rejoices. When are we members in particular? The word particular means that we show everyone by our actions that we are truly a part of something else.

God's People Are One

Two basic things are necessary to have the Church visible. First, the message preached. Secondly, people that live it. There was no visible Church through the Dark Ages because those two basic points were not carried out. The message must be preached. A People will never come out of religious confusion (Babylon) if we don't preach the truth about Babylon. We must tell them about the unity of God's people. We must help them understand that real salvation makes us a member of only one Church. The Holy Spirit doesn't lead people to build up Babylon. Can we say the the Holy Spirit set us in the body that we're working in?

What message did the sixth-seal brethren come out with that had not been preached already in Babylon? It was the unity of God's people. The rest of it was a carry-over from Babylon. That's why God is having to go through and sort out now. They were blessed wonderfully because God blessed all people in every age according to the light and understanding they had. He doesn't bless us because of the amount of light we have but according to how true we are to what light He has given us. Amidst all the other teachings, this is our message: Come out of her (Babylon/religious confusion) and be separate. And touch not the unclean thing.

[The End]