The Church and Body of Christ is the most important entity to God, for it is the reason for Him creating all things (even angels - Heb 1:14; 1Pe 1:12), and is the sole being created after Himself!
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The Gospel & the Church
I think it is of greatest importance to hold to the truth committed to the Church, as Paul exhorts Timothy, “Thou hast fully known my doctrine”—the Gospel and the Church.
The Gospel comprises all Christ has done for us; the Church, He has made us for Himself. It you do not know the first, you cannot be in the truth of the second. Even in John you get the Gospel, I may say, from chapter 3 to nearly the end of chapter 10.
From chapter 13 to 17 you are taught His grace in fitting you for Himself during His absence. I do not see that anyone could enter into chapter 13 but a lover of Christ. He is gone away; do you miss Him? Do you desire to have fellowship with Him where He is? Do you seek to be for Him here?
You will derive much help from studying John’s Gospel. I feel that some are painfully dark as to the Church, His Body—what it is to Christ; and also as to the judgment of the sinner (FYI, Scripture never refers to the believer as a sinner; only those who sin intentionally and on purpose are yet to be reborn—NC). You would hardly think that these two apparently different subjects could be so intimately connected.
The Body of Christ is His complement, derived from Himself. We are members of His Body. You do not understand the mystery—the Church which is His Body—if you do not see that “As is the heavenly [Man], such are they that are heavenly” (1Co 15:48).
You must apprehend the Second Man (by always being open to the Spirit’s guidance—NC), but you cannot do so, unless you see that the first man has been totally removed judicially (Ro 8:9—NC)—that is, in the Cross of Christ (“I am crucified with Christ . . . Christ lives in me” - Gal 2:20; He lives His own Life in me while in heaven via the Spirit—NC). The present judgment on every sinner (every unconverted soul) is death (which we need not to contemplate—NC)—there is the weight of death on him, which cannot be removed but by death (spiritual death—NC). So if he dies before he is relieved (ransomed), he is eternally lost.
Now our blessed Lord judicially ended the first Adam in the Cross (1Co 15:22), and He so glorified God under the judgement, that He was raised from the dead (the Father’s promised part of resurrection in the “Covenant of Redemption” which is between Them and not the believer—NC) by the glory of the Father. In Him the first man under judgement (our old man—NC) has been historically ended; and Christ has risen from the dead as the Last Adam (we left the Cross with Him, but the old man is still restrained and alive on it - “is crucified” - Rom 6:6 KJV—NC).
If you do not see the old Adamic man crucified (our old man or sin nature—NC), you cannot be fully relieved of the weight that is on you, and you do not fully enjoy the Gospel (because at times you still feel guilty when you’re not -1Jo 1:9—NC); you have not travelled in faith through the Red Sea to the other side, literally, through your death in Christ into the bright day of the resurrection and ascension.
If you have not come to the position of unspeakable joy (1Pe 1:8—NC), where you are in the favor of the Father (Jhn 16:27—NC), you are not able or ready to accept that you are a member of Christ’s Body—“all of one” (1Pe 3:8). That He has fully cleared you of all that lays upon you (Heb 12:1), and set you in the presence of the Father to His infinite satisfaction, is the Gospel; and that you are a member of the Body of Him who has effected all this for you is the “mystery of the Gospel” (Eph 6:19)—the Church (Col 1:18).
—James Butler Stoney (1814-1897)
MJS daily devotional excerpt for June 14
“The one purpose which our Father has in view, in all His ways, is to conform us to the image of His Son (by “working” in us – Phl 2:13—NC). This may explain our perplexities as to the past; it will govern our behavior in the present; it is to be our guidance in the future. The chief concern of our Lord is not to instruct us about a multitude of details, not to explain to us the reason for the trials which we are called to pass through. He is working out everything to serve His supreme purpose in displaying the character of His Son in His redeemed ones.”