The House of God and the Body of Christ

W. J. Lowe

The church of the living God is presented in two distinct ways in the New Testament, namely, as ‘the house of God’ and as ‘the body of Christ’. With the former is connected every matter of practical holiness and behaviour (Ps. 93:5; 1 Tim. 3:15); with the latter that special character of God’s ways in grace during the present interval, and, consequently, all that concerns the spiritual progress and final perfection of those who are soon to ‘bear the image of the heavenly’ and who are now expected to be found waiting and ‘ready’ for their Lord’s return (Eph. 4:8–16; 1 Cor. 15:48–49; Phil. 3:20–21; Col. 3:1–4; Mark 13:32–37; Luke 12:31–40).

The ‘house’ and its character depends upon what God is, who deigns to dwell therein, and has said, ‘Be ye holy, for I am holy’ (1 Pet. 1:13–16).

The ‘body’ is the complement of the glorified Son of Man, ‘the fulness of him that filleth all in all’ (Eph. 1:19–23; 3:2–12). The unfolding of this ‘mystery’ was specially committed to the Apostle Paul, who had been called to see the Lord Jesus in glory (1 Cor. 15:8; Acts 9:3–6; Eph. 1:22–23).

The mystery of the body of Christ could not be properly made known until the Head was glorified in heaven, after having accomplished His work of redemption. It was, says the apostle, a mystery hidden during the past ages (Eph. 3:5–6; Rom. 16:25), only to be revealed when the full expression of His love for the church had been given at the cross (John 15:13; Eph. 5:25). There is, however, a faint indication of it in Genesis 2, before the fall of Adam, which sets forth figuratively some of the fundamental truths on which it is based. The passage is referred to and partly quoted by the apostle in Ephesians 5:30–31, as indeed previously in the gospels, for another reason, by the blessed Lord Himself, referring to the relation established by God between a man and his wife (Matt. 19:4–5; Mark 10:7–8). The apostle adds, however, ‘This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church’.

In the original history (Gen. 2), we find that ‘Adam was first formed, than Eve’ (1 Tim. 2:13). So did the manifestation of Christ in this world precede any mention of the church, which is His body.

The woman was not formed until Adam had slept ‘a deep sleep’, when God took one of his ribs for that purpose. On awaking, he found a helpmeet; and so in a figure we find Christ’s death and resurrection to be the foundational event, which needed to occur to bring about the church’s existence, without which Psalm 8 could not be accomplished in divine order, nor His present glory have become available for anyone, whether Jew or Gentile (see John 12:20–24). In the death of Christ, God deals with man on the broad lines of his being ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ (Eph. 2:1–13), an epithet which applies to the Jew as well as to the Gentiles. Every national distinction is thus intentionally broken down (vs. 14–17), and the fulness of divine blessing flows out to the lost, as a consequence of Christ being ‘rejected of men’ (Isa 53:3; cf. 1 Pet. 2:3–5).

Types always fade before the divine realities which they foreshadow. Were it not for the inspired apostolic comment upon Adam’s words concerning Eve, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh’, who could have ventured to gather from them the wondrous conclusion, ‘we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones’?

Such was, however, the purpose of God for the glory of His Son, set forth in Eden, while Adam was as yet unfallen. And Adam ‘is the figure of him that was to come’ (Rom. 5:14). Through this touching history the believer’s heart is led on towards the consummation of those divine counsels which exceed in enthralling power all the brightness of displayed glory. Many will have part in the ‘kingdom’ who do not belong to the church (Matt. 8:11), but it is ‘to himself’ that Christ will present the church, without spot or wrinkle, holy and unblemished (Eph. 5:27). His peculiar portion is in her, who is, as Abigail was to David, the companion of His rejection, and she, the brightest jewel of redemption, is known as ‘the bride, the Lamb’s wife’ (Rev. 21:9).

Thus, in the earliest days of man’s history upon earth was first indicated the ‘mystery of [God’s] will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself’ (Eph. 1:9). The making of it known was reserved until the Son had fulfilled on earth the Father’s will and returned to heaven. But now that it is revealed, it commands the believer’s heart and conscience when he learns that ‘there is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of our calling’ (4:4). He is bound in the sight of God and in loyalty to Christ ‘to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (v. 3). The Spirit is given to Him for that purpose. ‘He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit’ (1 Cor. 6:17; 12:13).

The truth concerning the house of God, faintly set forth at Bethel in Jacob’s history (Gen. 28:17–22), could not properly be taken up in detail till after the flood, after Babel and the call of Abraham, and after the bondage of his descendants in the land of Egypt. But when it pleased God to accomplish the promise made to their fathers, He gathered out the Israelites as His own peculiar treasure (Ex. 19:4–6), in whose midst He was pleased to dwell. It is then in Exodus, the book of redemption, that we must look for the simplest and most fundamental principles of the house of God. The special features of the house in the form the Lord has given to it in the present time cannot invalidate those eternal principles of relationship with Him, which were clearly established at the first (Matt. 16:18). On the contrary, they confirm them, while receiving additional light from the inspired record of Israel’s passage through the wilderness and their sojourn in the promised land.

God having personally come down to deliver His people, and being Himself their leader in the pillar of cloud and fire, it was a divine necessity that He should remain with them, and that the tokens of His presence should be continually before them. In this respect, their sojourn in the wilderness was the brightest epoch of their history, and the truth unfolded in the Epistle to the Hebrews refers precisely to that period.

The answer of their hearts to it, beyond question inspired of God, was, ‘He is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him’ (Ex. 15:2). In the marvellous song after the passage of the Red Sea, we find three great principles brought together: a redeemed people, the house and the kingdom, the latter for the time being, as all the song shows, limited to Israel, for all the nations mentioned are there treated as enemies. But the first condition of God’s habitation existing amongst His people was that the people had been previously redeemed to Him. God Himself sets His seal to this at mount Sinai when He says to Moses, ‘Let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them’ (25:8).

One cannot conceive of anything more stirring and heart-searching than the continual sight of the cloud over the tabernacle in the centre of Israel’s camp — a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night (Num. 9:15–23). Every Israelite could see it from his tent door. And yet the history of their murmurings proves how little their hearts really rose up to it (chs. 11–17). Circumstances had more effect upon them than the fact of God’s presence and its proven power and grace. It was then as now a question of faith in God. And may we not ask ourselves whether we show ourselves more believing than they?

Exceptions there were of course even in the olden time. Psalm 27 expresses the right desires and feelings of one who has a sense of God’s presence and of what it involves. It was reserved to Moses to pray that the principle of God’s dwelling with His people should be confirmed to them in the future, and that the tabernacle, ‘the work of [their] hands’ (Ps. 90:1, 16, 17), should have its eternal counterpart. It will be true in the millennium for Israel, and universally in the eternal state (Rev. 21:3).

Some other principles had to be set forth before the coming of the Son of God to this earth incarnate. When Israel was established in the land of Canaan, God, who had dwelt and ‘walked’ amongst them in the wilderness, would have a permanent habitation, like the palaces of kings. David desired to erect it, and to him was given a fresh revelation that it could only be properly built by Him who was at the same time David’s son and David’s Lord, the one of whom God could say in deepest meaning, ‘I will be his father, and he shall be my son’ (1 Chr. 17:13, 11). Zechariah 6 shows to the returned captives that only His building can endure. 

In Zechariah 6, He is shown to be ‘the man whose name is the Branch’, growing up out of His place. He, the Son of Man, will bear the glory, and be a priest upon His throne, fulfilling what is said of Him in Psalms 2, 8, 91:16, 110:4, etc.

All these facts and shadows are gathered up by the Lord when He, speaking of Himself as ‘the Son of man’, obtained from Peter the required answer to His question: ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God’ (Matt. 16:13–18). And He adds, ‘Upon this rock I will build my church’. Here we find the first announcement given in the New Testament concerning that ‘house’ which is composed of ‘stones’ of which Peter was a sample in his confession that Jesus was the Son of the living God. Such are now ‘builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit’ (Eph. 2:22).

The administration of the kingdom, now a heavenly one, was confided by the Lord to Peter at the same time, thus maintaining the connection between the house and the kingdom, first set forth in Exodus 15.

From the rapid sketch above, which we have sought to condense as much as possible, it must be evident to every truly obedient heart that the discipline and holiness which become the house of God have foremost claim on the Christian’s attention, not only as to his own personal conduct, of which the epistles speak, but also as to his relations with his fellow Christians in the church or assembly.

W J Lowe[1]

[1] Extracted from: ‘The Church of the Living God’.

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From: Truth and Testimony, 2022