‹‹ WEEK 4 — DAY 3 ›› Morning Nourishment Col.1:18 And He is the Head of the Body, the church... 2:19 And not holding the Head, out from whom all the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God. 1 Cor.12:12 For even as the body is one and has many members,...so also is the Christ. Although eating and drinking are very common in our daily living, in the Bible they are matters of crucial significance. It is by our eating and drinking of Christ that God works Himself into us,...we take the Lord in, and He becomes one with us organically. As we eat and drink certain elements, those elements are taken into us and become one with us in substance and essence. As we eat and drink, our food becomes one with us organically, and, when it has been digested and assimilated, it actually becomes part of our being, our very fiber and tissue....We all need to eat Him and drink Him. According to the biblical record, drinking is more important than eating. In the Scriptures more is said about spiritual water, or the water of life, than about spiritual food. If we are enlightened by the Lord, we shall realize that we need drinking even more than eating. For this reason, in 1 Corinthians Paul emphasizes drinking more than eating. In 1 Corinthians 12:13 he says that we have been given to drink of one Spirit. Actually, drinking includes eating. This means that the spiritual food is included in the water of life. Without the water of life, we cannot have spiritual food. Therefore, if we fail to drink, we shall not be able to eat. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 566) Today’s Reading Christ is the Head of every man (1 Cor. 11:3a), the firstfruits (15:20, 23), the second man (v. 47b), the last Adam, and the life-giving Spirit (v. 45b). Since Christ is the first, the second, and the last, He is everything, and He is every member of the Body. As our everything, He takes our position; that is, He is everything, and we are nothing. However, we have all been put into Him. We are nothing in ourselves, but we have everything in Him. We may never have dreamed that Christ is so much. Moreover, Christ is not only the Head but also the Body [1 Cor. 12:12]....Most Christians realize that Christ is the Head, but they do not consider that He is also the Body. According to the concept we received from Christianity, we consider that Christ is the Head and that the church is the Body. Strictly speaking, however, this is a wrong concept....A man is a whole person, including his head and his body. Likewise, Christ is a complete person, both the Head and the Body. Since Christ is both the Head and the Body, He is the Body-Christ. This simply means that He is no longer only the individual Christ; He is also the corporate Christ. Christ has an individual aspect and a corporate aspect. Individually, He is Christ, and corporately, He is the Body-Christ. Regardless of how much we enjoy Jesus in our personal study of the Bible, we still cannot enjoy the corporate Christ in this way. In order to enjoy the corporate Christ, the Body-Christ, we need to come to the church meetings. We must be in the Body in a practical way....To be given to drink is to be positioned to drink, which, according to 1 Corinthians 12:13, is to be put into the Body. If we stay away from the meetings yet still try to pray-read, call on the Lord, and even shout, we will have a certain amount of enjoyment, but this enjoyment will be restricted and limited. It is difficult to make a fire with only one piece of wood....When one person says, “O Lord,” another says, “Hallelujah,” and a third person says, “Amen,” we burn one another. We strengthen, minister to, and supply one another. In this way we enjoy not only the Head but the Head with the Body, and not only the individual Christ but the corporate Christ, the Body-Christ. (The Enjoyment of Christ for the Body in 1 Corinthians, pp. 30-32) Further Reading: The Enjoyment of Christ for the Body in 1 Corinthians, ch. 3; The Recovery of Christ as Everything in the Church, ch. 3
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 00:21:33 +0000