Communal Growth into Christ

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" Ephesians 1:3

In my life I have repeatedly witnessed that I cannot do it on my own. I mean this in two ways. First that I cannot live, breath, move, succeed, or even be without the grace of God, and Second that I cannot stand strong in joy, faith, hope, and love without the grace of God in His church--in the community of His saints. In last Sunday's sermon (on 1John 1:1-4) a theme came up that I witnessed with regularity in Paul's writing: the joy and strength given to us in the church especially through the sharing of our faith. God's gifts come to individuals, but it is spread out on the church as a whole. We are supposed to function as a whole, blessing one another with the blessings with which we have been blessed.

Spiritual growth is very personal and concerned with the individual, but it is also communal. In Ephesians we are told that we are given (by GOD the Father in Christ Jesus) gifts for our spiritual development. Slight tangent: lately I have been thinking about Ephesians 1:3-14, namely on "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places," and I have been asking "How is this true? Where am I seeing this blessing? Where do I find it? What is this?" The following verses expound upon this grace with which we have been lavished. The rest of chapter one is Paul's prayer on their behalf, praying that God would pour out His grace upon them, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him." Chapter 2 takes the task of explaining God's grace again. But in addition to these passages, I think some of these questions are answered, at least partially, in Ephesians 4.

In Chapter 4, half way through the Epistle, Paul shifts his attention to unity, purity, righteousness, love, and right order in the body/bride of Christ. With classic Pauline structure, he goes from exposition of doctrine to its application and our response to the exposited truth. Chapter 4 begins with Paul urging the Ephesians to be united in view of their complete unity in Christ, having been reconciled to God and one another by the cross and blessed in Him by the Spirit. After listing the various levels of their unity, Paul explains that there are diverse gifts allocated to each person "according to the measure of Christ's gift." There is a diversity of grace in our unity, though we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Christ's distribution of these gifts is done to accomplish His will, "that He might fill all things," (4:10) that we might be "filled with the fullness of God" (3:19). He has given us "the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers" (4:11) among other gifts for our maturity in Christ, that we may grow up into Him who is the Head, Christ (4:15). The church, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (1:22-23), is supposed to be transformed into the likeness of the Image of the Invisible God--"the one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Ephesians 4:6).

An image that the Heidelberg Catechism uses to explain maturity in Christ (growth into Christ who is the Head) is from Genesis 2. In explaining what communion means, the Catechism states:

"Through the Holy Spirit, who lives both in Christ and in us, we are united more and more to Christ's blessed body. And so, although He is in heaven and we on earth, we are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone."

I love this image! What a great allusion to the creation of woman emphasizing us being new creations "according to our kind" in Christ. We are given grace in the church that we may be built up "until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." 4:13

Later in the epistle to the Ephesians, the image of headship (growing up into Christ who is the head) is used again in the context of instructions to husbands and wife. Wives are told to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ, for the head of the wife is her husband and the head of the church is Christ. Husbands are then instructed to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her purification. The bride of Christ has blemishes, spots, and wrinkles and Christ gave Himself to purify the church as a whole.

Here I find that spiritual growth is spoken of in communal terms again. Our strengths and our weaknesses are not just our own, they are shared in Christ, till the church/bride is purified--till she is without wrinkle or blemish and in the words of 4:2, we ought to bear "with one another in love" (4:2), having been united in Christ, and being "eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (4:3). Our own blemishes are being worked out as a congregation and the bride is not perfect until everyone is perfect. God's will through Christ is to present His bride as holy and blameless to Himself (Ephesians 1:4). We are supposed to offer our strength to one another and together be built up into Christ who is our head.

During my first semester at Biola I found out how vital it is to be personally invested with those in Christ, before then it was an unacknowledged reality. When Christ laid hold of me, I took to sharing my faith with other people, listening to their problems and giving council, prayer, and love. I had a small group of friends and they, along with my mother and leaders at Grace, would continually put zeal, joy, faith, and love before me if ever I were to loose perspective--as I often did. I was continually brought to the cross and empty tomb of Christ (who is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on High, who reigns enthroned high above the heavens and the earth, and is above all rulers, powers, and authorities both now and forever, Amen.) by their Christocentric lives and teaching. I was always encouraged by the sharing of their faith. Here I think I can understand a bit of Paul's enthusiasm in Romans 1:15, when he is "eager to preach the Gospel" to those who are in Rome. He wanted to share his faith with them that they might be mutually benefited and rejoice in Christ, giving God all the glory in their lives. He wanted to preach the gospel, and no doubt he wanted to hear the gospel they preached as well, having heard of their faith. This makes me think of Philemon 6, where Paul prays "that the sharing of your [Philemon's] faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ."

My first semester at Biola, I did not invest myself personally with the great witnesses to God's goodness around me. When I went to church I was "too tired" to listen and gain much from the sermon. I began to feel a separation. I also did not "have time" to write e-mails to people that I had previously conversed with frequently and would share my faith with. I used to show them who I was, where I had been and where I was going, but now I was being tempted to turn inward (in terms of solitude). I got a lot of new "friends," many were just acquaintances and after the first semester I did not know more than half of them anymore. Due to such a frequent and admittedly excessive interaction with people that I did not have the time necessary to develop relationships with I became comfortable with relationships that were not as serious and compromised a bit in the content of my strong friendships. Consequently, not much was coming into me and not much was going out. I grew tired. I ought to have sought to be more deeply involved with the people that I was getting to know.

Joy, what we find as the benefit of our proclamation of the gospel to others, is very personal. I am tempted to be impersonal (watch, my comments and questions will turn to books and papers). I am tempted to go into myself. I am tempted to be solitary in my relationship with God. I am tempted to think that if all I had to do was seek strength from God directly, or love Him, or be humble before Him I would be fine. But in truth, if I cannot love the brother who is right in front of me--my brother whom I have seen, how can I love God, whom I have not seen? Part of the problem of this self-sufficiency is that I do not want to be dependent on others, and this necessity of community to live is abhorrent to my pride. But if I cannot be humble toward my brother, whom I have seen, how can I be humble toward my God, whom I have not seen? In other words: if I cannot love my brother and if I cannot be humble towards him, I cannot call my disposition towards God love or humility. There is a holistic reality to my relationships--all my relations speak of my relationship with God.

O Lord, in Thy mercy redeem my relationships from my low expectations of what you want to do through them. God redeem my conception of what my brothers and sisters in Christ are to me. Make my relationships tools for the building up of your Church in Christ, relationships that are edifying for both myself and my brothers and sisters in Christ. God, help me to be personal and joyful, zealously sharing my faith that we may know all the good things that you have given us in Christ Jesus.

This post is connected to the last one, having been united in Erik Thoennes' sermon last Sunday. There were about four points that he addressed that have been repeatedly brought to me over the past month. Teach me, O Lord, what am I to learn?

(These last few posts, and probably, most posts to come are merely open reflections and rather personal. So they will not always be clear, concise, or on one topic. Sorry if it is hard to follow.)