Our Oneness in the Body of Christ and the Consequences of Ignoring It

What happens to you affects me. If we choose to work together, the Body of Christ is healthy and effective. If we choose not to recognize each other, we are still one, but the Body of Christ os diseased.

The New Testament thus repeatedly declares that we who are one with Christ are also one with each other. There is one body, Paul wrote, and one Spirit, even as we are called in one hope of our calling.¹ Christ died, in part to break down the wall that the Law placed between Jews and Gentiles—the highest and most impenetrable of divisions between groups of people—by nailing the law to His Cross, thus abolishing the enmity, the hostility, in order to make in himself “of the two one new man, making peace.”² In Christ, all of the other divisions between us have likewise been broken down. “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”³ We are one.

            Moreover, we are one as members of a single body, the Church, the Body of Christ. Paul explained in Romans 12:4-5 that, even though the human body has many members, and every member does not have the same office or function, it is one body. In the same way, we in the Church, though many in number, and many in function, are “are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” Therefore, we should each perform our own office in the Body diligently, according to the full measure of faith we were given to perform that function.⁴ The implications of this are most clearly explained in 1 Corinthians 12:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

1 Corinthians 12:12-27.

            In this passage, God very plainly declares that Christ has only one Body and that all of us who are in Christ are members of that one Body. Moreover, while we have different functions and some of us are more presentable than others, we all need each other. Indeed, we have been given different functions precisely in order that we will recognize our common membership in a single Body and our resulting need for each other.  The Russian Orthodox philosopher Vladimir Solovyov explained this as follows, basing his interpretation on the body analogy of I Corinthians 12:

Every man, if only he lets ‘Christ be formed in him,’ i.e., if he enters into the spirit of the perfect man, and determines all his life and activity by the ideal revealed in the image of Christ, participates in the Godhead through the power of the Son of God abiding in him… According to the well-known saying of St. Paul, the peculiarities of structure and function which distinguish a given bodily organ from other organs do not separate it from them and from the rest of the body, but on the contrary are the basis of its definite positive participation in the life of the organism, and make it of unique value to all the other organs and the body as a whole. Likewise in the ‘Body of Christ’ individual peculiarities do not separate one person from others, but unite each with all, being the ground of his special significance for all and of his positive interaction with them.

Solovyov, V., The Justification of the Good: An Essay on Moral Philosophy (N.A. Duddington, Tr.; B. Jachim, Ed.) (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans 2005), 245-246

If you and I are both members of the Body, what happens to me affects you. If I suffer, you suffer. If I am honored, you are honored. If the Body works well together, is healthy and gloriously effective in accomplishing its mission, we all share in the fruits of its success. If the Body is divided, sick and ineffective, we all suffer together. We share in each others’ lives, whether I choose to have fellowship with you or refuse to recognize that you are also a member of the Body. We are members of one Body, and our membership in that Body does not depend on our recognition of each other as members.  So what happens when there is a division in the body, and the eye says to the hand, “I don’t need you?” Does the hand cease to be a part of the body? No—the hand remains a part of the body, but the body becomes diseased, as will be further explained in the posts which immediately follow.