Christ is the Body, "the Body-Christ"

[Trapped]

Quote from Lee’s ministry:

"Verse 12 says, "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 the Christ" (Gk.). In this verse Paul brings in the concept that Christ is the Body. You may be familiar with the fact that in verse 12 we see the Body-Christ, the corporate Christ, not the individual Christ. Yes, we are the corporate Christ. However, if we are dumb when we gather together in the meetings, Christ has no way to come forth. He cannot come forth when we are silent. But when we are spiritual, speaking and functioning in the meetings, Christ comes out. When you speak for Christ, Christ comes forth in your speaking. If we all speak forth Christ, then the corporate Christ, the Body-Christ, will come forth. This is Christ as the Body. In order to have the Body-Christ, we all need to speak."

Lee makes a leap here that I just don't see, although maybe it is legitimate, in which case I welcome an explanation. I don't read 1 Cor. 12:12 and get the concept that "Christ is the Body". I read it and get that many members of the human body are one, and in like manner all the members of Christ's Body are one, including with Christ Himself, the Head.

Using a term like “the corporate Christ” or “the Body-Christ” seems unnecessary and like they could easily lead to a misunderstanding of the concept. It’s as if we are Christ without Him, or as if there are two Christs......the Head-Christ and the Body-Christ, or Christ and the corporate Christ. We have the Biblical phrase “the Body of Christ".......why torque it into “the Body-Christ”??

The verse, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” does come to mind, when of course in reality Saul was persecuting the believers, the Body. In the LC this was always explained as persecuting the believers is persecuting the Lord Himself, with the example given that if someone punches your arm, you don’t say “Ow, why did you punch my arm?” you say “Ow, why did you punch ME?”

But other Bible commentaries on this verse say things like “Christ speaks of Himself as persecuted by Saul, because ‘in all the affliction of his people he is afflicted’ (Isaiah 63:9), and ‘whoso toucheth them, toucheth the apple of his eye’ (Zechariah 2:8).” This kind of explanation seems to me to provide one healthy degree of removal......kind of emphasizing how great the Lord’s love is for us that persecuting us is like persecuting Him, rather than, essentially, we = Christ.

Another thought is that in the analogy, where punching my arm is punching ME, and that my body = ME, well.......our body ISN’T actually us. Our body just “houses” us. What is “us” continues on after death and ever after the body has decayed away. So in that sense, it’s like the body is what contains and carries out the functions of us, and in the same way the Body is what contains and carries out the functions of Christ, and in this way persecuting the Body is persecuting Christ, but the body doesn’t EQUAL Christ. After all, how could Christ marry Christ?

I may be off here and am happy to be enlightened. Maybe this is mysterious and has to remain that way. Just thinking out loud mostly.