In meditations 56 to 62, we saw that God’s Spirit wants to empower us individually to achieve mature, Christlike love for God. We realised that the Holy Spirit wants to do that in such a way that we fulfill God’s first and greatest commandment: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."(Matthew 22:37)
But what about the earlier mentioned 'second track'?
(see meditation 47). How does God’s Spirit develop my church, as the local Body of Christ, into a mature loving community that fulfils God’s first and greatest commandment?
The first question to ask ourselves is, if there is a difference between my personal love for God and my church’s corporate love for Him. Does the local church not only exist of individual believers? I think that God’s Word [the Bible] makes a difference here.
The entire temple and its single stones
The apostle Peter reminds his fellow Christians in what is now Turkey: “...God is building you, as living stones, into his spiritual temple...” (1 Peter 2:5)
The significance of the entire temple stands for so much more than one single stone. Yet, a temple consists of many single stones!
The one body and its many parts
The apostle Paul lectures the followers of Jesus in Rome, explaining: “Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. We are all parts of his one body, and each of us has different work to do. And since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others.” (Romans 12:4-5)
Again, we understand that a human body stands for so much more than its individual parts. Yet, it consists of many individual parts together!
The entire people and its individual citizens, the entire family and its respective members
Here are two other examples in one verse. The apostle Paul addresses non-Jewish followers of Jesus Messiah as belonging to God, saying: “... now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family.” (Ephesians 2:19)
Without doubt, the importance of an entire nation stands for so much more than its individual citizens, and an entire family for so much more than its respective members. However, in our individualistic, Western society this biblical concept might well be challenged.
My local church and its individual members
It is the same with the local church. The apostle Paul depicts all individual reborn members of the local church together as the
« Temple of God’s Spirit ». He writes to the local church in Corinth: “Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?”
(1 Corinthians 3:16)
And again, Paul defines all individual, reborn members of that same church together as the « Body of Christ » : “... we have all been baptized into Christ's body by one Spirit, and we have all received the same Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13)
Once more, the apostle Peter calls all individual reborn members of the church together as « People of God » : “... you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
Finally, in the first letter to his co-worker Timothy, the apostle Paul describes all the individual members of the local church together as « God’s Family » : “... so that if I can't come for a while, you will know how people must conduct themselves in the household of God. This is the church of the living God...”
(1 Timothy 3:15)
Reflecting on these Bible verses, we realize that God looks at my local church as the ‘Temple of His Spirit’, as the ‘Body of Christ’, and as the ‘People and Family of God’.
In God’s eyes the role and significance of my local church is so different from that of me as an individual Christian. In God’s view my church is ‘a corporate personality’ with its own life, its own function and its own dynamics.
I think that the most beautiful picture of the church as ‘corporate personality’ we find in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian Christians: “I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. For I promised you as a pure bride to one husband, Christ.”
(2 Corinthians 11:2)
Of course, this is not the first and only time in the Bible that God’s people are depicted as a ‘corporate personality’. The Old and the New Testament pictures God’s people often as ‘servant of God’, ‘son of God’, ‘wife of God’, ‘Daughter of Zion’, 'Virgin Israel’, ‘bride of the Messiah’, etc.
Two Bible verses might specially illustrate God’s longing for the love of His people. In both verses God’s people are addressed as a ‘young bride’.
In the seventh century B.C., God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah and cries out to His unfaithful people, saying: “Go and shout in Jerusalem's streets: This what the LORD says: I remember how eager you were to please me as a young bride long ago, how you loved me and followed me even through the barren wilderness.” (Jeremiah 2:2)
In the same way, the risen Messiah reproves His people in Ephesus (modern Turkey). Through the apostle John, the Lord speaks to them in the 2nd person singular (!), declaring: “... I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.” (Revelation 2:4)
All these Bible verses require serious consideration:
Indeed, God does loves me personally, but He loves my church as well! God desires my personal love for Him, but He longs also for the corporate love of my church, as it is ‘the Bride of Christ’!
So, how does God’s Spirit empower my church (as ‘the Bride of Christ’) to grow into mature Christlike love for God. How does He accomplish that in such a way that my church fulfills God’s first and greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
That will be the theme of the next meditation. So, hold on!
(to be continued)
The Bible verses Matthew 22:37, 1 Peter 2:9 and Revelation 2:4 are quotes of the New International Version. The other texts are quoted from the New Living Translation.
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