Stop Slapping Your Head And Shooting Yourself In The Foot!

Stop Slapping Your Head And Shooting Yourself In The Foot!

I Cor 12:12-27

In many of my teachings, I have sought to emphasize the Church as a family. It is a very large family and all the things that go with being a family fits in the Church. We share love and responsibilities. We share joy and sorrow. We share victories and defeats. We share the peace of being in one accord and at times, we share the tension of discord. We have births and deaths. Gloriously, from God’s perspective we are wed and never divorced! In our flesh, we do suffer the searing pain of being cut in two by divorce.

God makes two into one at marriage. That union is created painlessly in love and is made to last until death. Saw a person in two and you will have nothing but pain and death. People who lose their mates in death will tell you that they are incomplete and a part of them has died. Since until the new Heaven and Earth is created death will be a part of us God heals with a balm this natural separating of one into two. This healing is much faster than if man creates the separation. This is why the phrase "what God has joined together, let no man put asunder" is very important in the marriage ceremony. God puts the couple together and if by death, He puts them asunder He will work in the healing and the half will be made whole by bringing the remaining spouse closer to Him to whom they are married spiritually and perhaps one day by a new spouse.

If man does the putting asunder, it is an unnatural act contrary to God’s will and in essence, a suicide, or a murder. Lose a loved one to a disease, accident, or old age and the pain and anguish is not nearly as crushing as that of a suicide or murder.

We know that disease and natural causes will take us all at some time or another. We accept this and grieve with hope if we are Christians. An accident is unexpected and the shock tremendous, but we cope because accidents are a normal part of our existence and an "acceptable" or at least understandable means of death. However, suicide and murder are never acceptable and the shock is greater and there are questions and emotions that will haunt us far longer than any other cause of death.

A God of grace works even in things that are out of His will. If we have been divorced under conditions other than what the Bible allows He will still be there. While I have given a graphic analogy of the results of divorce to show its seriousness lest any be naïve or haphazard in their view of it, I do not mean to bring hopelessness to those who have experienced it. God IS a God of grace. He will be with His children. He will heal any wound if we come to Him for the healing. He can raise the dead and will bring about "beauty for ashes." (Isaiah 61:3)

I have only touched on familiar issues of family and marriage to lead us into a teaching that is a little harder for us to understand. We are more than just members of God’s family and Brides of Christ. We are ONE body! Because we fail to understand this fundamental truth, there is much pain and sickness in the Church and we are weak and ineffective. This illness leaves a myriad of souls languishing in a slow and painful death outside of the love of Christ because they see no balm for their sores in the Church. For there is no balm for the Church’s wounds of self-mutilation for the Church is ignorant and anesthetized by that ignorance therefore it seeks no balm or remedy.

I fear that I am being far too kind when I use the word ignorant for that implies that we just do not know. Yet, the New Testament is nearly 2000 years old. How could we be ignorant of the issue? Stupid means one incapable of learning and I know we are not that. Perhaps slow or dull are better terms though they are a bit more denigrating than ignorant. I pray that God will grant us illumination and wisdom as we study this truth.

1 Cor 12:12 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.

To the Hebrews, the sum of the Old Testament is declared in Deut 6:4 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:" (KJV) The word one used here can mean one and only one, but it can be used to show a composite unity. Trinitarians believe that it is the composite unity being used in this verse. A composite unity is much like when we speak of one cluster of grapes and yet there are many grapes in that cluster. It was also used of a man and his wife when it was said they were to become one flesh. (Gen 2:24) I am not here to prove the Trinity tonight, but I wanted to give you some other concepts of composite unity to think of as we discuss the one body of Christ.