Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
He does not mention that the church is the Body of Christ, this is not an allegory, it is a fact. So yes, pictures can refer to some Biblical references to the Body, but "plain words" refer to other references to the Body.
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IMHO taken in the context of the entire NT "the Body" is a metaphoric term used to describe a relationship between Christ and the believers and between believers. I base this mainly on two things:
1. Christ has a glorified physical body and does not need a collective of unglorified bodies to literally be his body.
2. We are not literally organs or appendages of a literal body even though Paul in 1 Corinthians metaphorically discusses us as such.
It is easy to get lost in the metaphors used throughout Scripture and miss the lessons they are meant to teach. In the sense that we have a deep meaningful relationship with Christ and each other "the Body" is a useful metaphor but if you push it too far it begins to break down.