Ephesians 1:23
Now the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Now the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Nothing is closer to you than your body. What Paul is saying is that there is something mysterious about Jesus's connection to the church.
The church as the fullness of Christ communicates the level of attachment of Christ and the church.
As Paul had been saying, there are infinite blessings towards us in Him, through Him, By Him. The church is the truly the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Jesus calls her my church (Matthew 16:18). When Paul persecuted the church, Jesus said he was persecuting him (Acts 9:4-5).
And that the church is the body of Christ introduces the church to us as a living, divine organization.
In other contexts in the Bible, we see the church as a group of people who see themselves as part of a single body of believers they associate with regularly.
So there is, what I call, the organismal church and the organizational church. It's not different churches, but like the different sides of the same coin.
- In the organismal church, we have the life of Christ flowing through us and gifts divinely given.
- In the organizational church, we have a structure with Christ as the head, and then the apostles etc.
For the organismal church we have the top down hierarchy from the head - Christ - to the the rest of us individually and collectively; for the organizational church we have Christ also as the head and His connection is through those He has set in the church as apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelist pastors whose main function is the feeding of the sheep, the equipping of the saints with the word of God till we all grow up fully into Christ (Ephesians 4:7-16).
Some people want to say everybody is the same, since we have the idea of the priesthood of the believers (1 Peter 2:9); that is true.
But two things can be true at the same time. It is true that we are a royal priesthood, and we do not need any man to be an intermediary between God and us except the one and only Christ (1 Timothy 2:5). That is as true as true can be.
But there are people who do not connect us to God, or connect God to us, but they bring a message meant to transform us.
So they are not priests, and those distinctions need to be made, but they are messengers.
They are stewards of the mystery of Christ (1 Corinthians 4:1), meaning they are conduits. And they should not be called, and must not be called priests, in my opinion, because that begins to confuse Old and New Testament categories.
Paul described himself as a priest in a form (Romans 15:16), specifically as a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving the gospel of God like a priest. Notice the word "like." That is why I said priest in a form to describe a minister.
The priest's primary role was to offer sacrifices on behalf of the people (Hebrews 5:1).
And the priests stand and bless the people (Numbers 6:24–26). So what now happens when we have been blessed with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:3)?
Meaning that the bank of heavenly blessings has been emptied on us. It's that feeling that Isaac had after blessing Jacob and Esau now says come we need more blessing (Genesis 27).
I believe that what is called the Aaronic blessing should be rested in view of the full blessing that we already have in Christ.
The blessing now, if we would put it that way, is the preaching of the word, in my opinion, the breaking of the heavenly bread and bless the sheep, feed the sheep.
So how do we now end a meeting, like official sign off that the meeting is over, if not with some form of benediction?
I for one do not find the benefit in benediction, but I do not have a specific way for the service to end, but maybe with greetings?
In several places Paul said greet one another with an holy kiss as he was rounding up his letter.
Romans 16:16: Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.
1 Corinthians 16:20: All the brothers and sisters send greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
2 Corinthians 13:12: Greet one another with a holy kiss.
1 Thessalonians 5:26: Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss.
1 Peter 5:14: Greet one another with a loving kiss. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.
So maybe end the service with a time of greeting that is culturally appropriate?
And I am not setting anything in stone here. But it smells too much of borrowing from the old testament concept of priesthood for someone to pretend the bless the people in some formal way. Does that not feed the arrogance in my own heart?
I think we have a tendency to not think as highly as we ought on the preaching of the word. Jesus Christ said feed my sheep, thrice to Peter (John 21:15-17). How many things did Jesus or God say thrice? Not many.
What blessing for the people who had the bread broken and their eyes were opened to see Jesus while they were on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:30–31)!
To me, that is a metaphor for the impact of the word of God when it is broken and shared with people, increasing their knowledge of God.
Do you give the hungry person words or food? What do we need for growth, words or spiritual food? That to me is the blessing.
