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Originally Posted by Gubei
The Body of Christ is a kind of symbol or metaphor (or illustration, type etc...) in the Bible, meaning the expression is not a statement describing Church as an physical entity.
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There may have been a number of different levels of thought which were already competing (or running in tandem) by the NT era. The clearest sign of a number of interpretive grids in the 1st century CE is found in the NT itself, where the Sadducees don't believe in resurrection (neither angel nor spirit) but the Pharisees do. Also, the desert groups like Essenes/Theraputae/Qumran were antagonistically apart from both Jerusalem sects. Many scholars see Qumran influence on the Baptist, and several of Jesus' Galilean disciples were first with John (John 1:35)
So "the church which is the Body of Christ" may not have had a monolithic and universal mental construct behind it, either in penning or in its initial reception. At the very least, "the church which is in his/their house" was one common interpretation, which we'd today call a "meeting" or "gathering" or "assembly", versus a permanent standing body which superseded space and time. See, e. g., Philemon 1:2; 1 Cor 16:19; Rom 16:5.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gubei
Additionally, even though WL says the head of the Body of Christ is Christ, sometimes he also says there is such members as a Seer (Watchman Nee), deputy authority, prominent apostles..., which leads us to the conjecture that the Head, the Christ, can be seen through this "special" brothers. We know the resultant outcome.
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Gubei,
I appreciated your reference to Kirkegaard. Lost in the oft-misplaced fixation on "church" is the individual. I especially appreciated the line, "The God-relationship is worked out in the inner man." And I'd argue that nearly the entire NT scriptural use of OT referents has this singular point, that the individual in question is Jesus Christ. He is the Last Adam. He is the Lamb of God. He is the Good Shepherd, who lays down His life. He is the Son of David. He said, "All these things were concerning me". In this context the "ekklesia" is in some very real sense an extension of that One Individual, his obedience, his suffering, his glory. And for anyone in the collective to see anything other than that One Individual is to take one's eyes off of Salvation itself. The NT usage of OT text established this. The "I" of scripture is Christ. No Nee, Lee, Darby, Luther, or Paul can be ever conflated with the Head. I never see Paul setting up Timothy (or anyone else) to be his continuation.
No, to me the text is clear: "I (Christ) will sing praises to You (the Father) in the midst of the 'ekklesia'". As soon as we think of "deputy" God we're already taken from safety. The collective has been taken over by the wrong individual. The 'leader' is no more Christ but a usurper.
Now, lest our readers think that I'm some radical bomb-throwing anarchist wanting to burn down 2,000 year of Christian history, I remind them of Jesus' words: love one another. The individual is freed from self by 1) taking Jesus Christ as his/her person, and 2) by loving the individual next to you. Notice that Christ never teaches, "Love God with your whole soul and strength, and love the church". No, he teaches, "love the individual person next to you." This is the balance that frees one from loving some mythical pie-in-the-sky "Christ" while despising all else.
Much more to say (of course), but my posts are too long, anyway. Also, they're too confident in 'tone' or 'voice'. Please understand that I'm just thinking aloud. Nothing is "truth" to be argued over.