Quote:
Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!
I read something today in a T. Austin Sparks writing and was reminded of this thread. In contrasting the old covenant of shadows and pictures with the new covenant of the substance and reality, Sparks said, "Christ is everything . . . He is the Church."
Previously in this thread, we had some good/lively discussion (weren't those were the "good ol' days"!?) about who is the head (pretty obvious) and who is the body (a "great mystery"), so to say "Christ is the Church" may be a little much for some . . .
If anyone is interested, I can post the entire page from Sparks so you can see his context.
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There is always a danger in saying something scripture doesn’t say “Christ is the Church”. I don’t care if it comes from T.A. Sparks. Best to go back and carefully read Colossians 3 in the Greek and start with verse 9 so verse 11 is taken in the context of the new man (anthropon, human race?) we have put on that Christ is creating in His image where Christ is all and in all (not all is Christ, which is the way Sparks takes it). And this is in contrast to the old man (human race?) we are to put off which has Greek, Jew, Barbarian, Scythian). I take this to mean that Christ is all to me and the other members of His body plus Christ is in me as well as in the other members of His body, therefore race doesn’t matter.
As many have stated very well in this thread, there is much danger in blurring the lines of who Christ is because it gets us quickly to the place of taking orders from men rather than Christ.