One Body In Christ
By Tammy Lacock
This week begins a new study which Warren Litzman calls Jesus and Paul. Warren focuses on the Apostle Paul as having an intricate role in God’s plan as the only man raised up by Christ Himself to bring to humanity a new and final gospel, the gospel of grace, which tells us where Christ is now and who we are now in God’s plan.
In Christianity today, we have a church that brings us a confused Christ, putting Him into two different categories but meshing them together. In one category, we try to live like Christ, which only makes us frustrated and ultimately defeated because this isn’t and has never been God’s plan for us. In the other category, Paul tells us that by God’s grace, Christ is our very life. We are not to live like Him but rather our old selves have “been crucified with Christ,” and our new life is Him living within us. We are no longer to know Him as Jesus of Nazareth but now as the one who lives in us and through us, our Lord of glory (Colossians 1:27). Christ is no longer an outer person; He lives within us being joined to our spirits making us one spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17).
The problem is that we commingle these two gospels not realizing that Paul’s gospel is the one true and final gospel for today. That is, Paul’s message of Christ living in every believer through God’s grace. Paul’s gospel of Christ moves us out of salvation by law and into salvation by grace, that is by Christ’s death and resurrection. We are now brand-new creations in Him. God no longer sees us; He sees Christ. This was God’s plan before the foundation of the world.
“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." (Ephesians 1:4 KJV)
In His last words on the cross, Christ said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46) and “It is finished” (John 19:30). At the cross, Christ’s ministry in the body of Jesus of Nazareth was finished, allowing God’s plan of Christ’s spirit living in every believer to be fulfilled. Finally, Jesus is vibrantly alive the way He wants to be…not in the body manufactured by Mary but as a gift of life to every believer.
Jesus became the utter fulfillment of who He was to be in God’s plan. He went from living in one body, Jesus of Nazareth, to living out His eternal life in another body, the Church, the one Body of Christ. God put the incorruptible seed of Christ in every believer, His spirit joined to ours.
However, we didn’t know what had happened when this radical change took place. The only way we would know is through the Apostle Paul. Paul’s conversion on the way to Damascus was the beginning of Christ raising up only one man to deliver this new gospel. When it was revealed to him that Christ was His very life, living in him (Gal. 1:15-17), Paul shared it with the world. He underwent a radical mind change, and his mind continually renewed in his new life in Christ. Yet it was hard for the world to take hold of this new gospel because Christianity was and still is holding onto the outer Christ in Jesus of Nazareth. This commingling of gospels has gotten us to a place where we don’t know who we are.
Yet Paul tells us who we are. We must follow Paul as he follows Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1) to understand our new life and who we are now in Christ. We are bona fide children of God by the very life of Christ now living within us. We are one body in Christ. This was God’s plan from the beginning. We (humans) were chosen to be in Him, and giving thanks to Paul, this final gospel has been revealed to us!
“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12 KJV)
