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Chapter 6

Bread, Blood, and Betrayal

THERE HAVE BEEN TWO bodies of Christ � the first was Jesus of Nazareth. The second, formed when Jesus sent His Holy Spirit to the hundred and twenty or so disciples who �were all with one accord in one place,�* is the Body that Paul expects all Christians always to discern (1 Corinthians 11) and never to betray.

*(No, not in the upper room. Study Acts 1:12�15 and 2:1 carefully. Acts 1:12�13 mentions the upper room in connection with only �the apostles whom he had chosen� (1:2), the antecedent of they also named in 1:13.

With what I call a �context-divider,� Acts 1:15 begins �And in those days,� referring to a later time, and says there were about 120 disciples in Jerusalem.

Finally, with another context-divider, Acts 2:1 says, �And when the day of Pentecost was fully come,� speaking about a still later time when �they were all ... in one place.�

Not one thing in these scriptures suggests that the �one place� where the 120 met was the upper room. If it were, surely the careful historian Luke � who was a stickler for detail � would have said so.)

Discerning this Body as what it is � and isn't � is crucial. Failure to discern it leads one to betray Him � and to suffer, Paul warns. In 1 Corinthians, Paul equates Judas's betrayal of Jesus with separatists' and exclusivists' betrayal of the Body of Christ, which he goes on to explain, in details that are crucial to our understanding of exactly who we are.

Paul says he has heard that when the Corinthian Christians come together to eat the Lord's Supper, they eat separately, some shunning others � then he goes straight to the matter of betrayal, just as the earlier accounts of the Lord's last Passover also link that supper with Judas's betrayal.

Where the New Testament tells of Judas's betrayal, it immediately mentions the last supper � and where it mentions the last supper, it tells of Judas's betrayal. The last supper and Judas's betrayal are linked, so their meanings are closely if not inseparably related.

To learn the meaning of the Lord's Supper from the Gospel accounts and 1 Corinthians, we must carefully study it in its relation to betrayal. Note how closely the New Testament accounts relate the two �

� ... Judas Iscariot ... sought opportunity to betray him.... And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.... He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.... woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said.� (Matthew 26:14�16, 21�25 (read also Mark 14:10�11, 18�21. To get the full meaning of these texts more clearly, read not only these excerpts but also the full passages, in context.)

�And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him;... When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.... He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.� (John 13:2, 21�27)

� ... the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took [a loaf]*: and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

*The word that�s unfortunately translated bread in the King James Version literally means a loaf, one unsliced block or lump of bread. �Bread� in English can be almost anything, even a bite or a crumb. The distinction is important to our full understanding of the meaning of the Lord's use of the one loaf as a symbol for His one body. (When I had a CB radio in my rig, my �handle� was �Bread Crumb.�)

�After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this loaf, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.� (1 Corinthians 11:21�26)

�Blood� was a slang term for agreement, kinship, and loyalty in Bible times � also a familiar term for wine �

� .. he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes� (Genesis 49:11)

� ... thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.� (Deuteronomy 32:14)

As Jesus sat with the twelve at His last Passover, He emphasized the lasting importance of the occasion �

�And they made ready the passover. And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer: for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.� (Luke 22:13�16)

Then He used two familiar, well established symbols of life and loyalty, giving them special and eternal significance for His people � first, the cup of wine �

�And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves� (Luke 22:17)

This first cup signified the old covenant, �signed� in ox blood, as recorded in the Old Testament �

�And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, ... and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do.... And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basons; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.� (Exodus 24:3�8)

Then, to reinforce the meaning of the cup of wine as a symbol of life and agreement or loyalty, Jesus also used the loaf, another recognized symbol of life and an unbreakable covenant of undying loyalty �

� ... he took a loaf, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.� (Luke 22:19)

Then He offered them the second cup, which signified � in contrast to the first cup and superseding it � His new covenant in His blood �

�Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.� (Luke 22:20 � emphasis added)

Then He told of His impending betrayal �

�But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table.� (Luke 22:21)

Jesus already knew that this time would come �

�I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.� (John 13:18)

Here, he referred to Old Testament prophecies that used one of the same symbols of unspeakable betrayal �

�Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.� (Psalm 41:9)

� ... the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee (Obadiah 7)

But Christ had no sooner risen, and the Holy Spirit had no sooner come, than the Body of Christ began to divide along all the old natural fault lines � gaps that have ever since grown wider and wider, which have become �honorable� and even considered ecclesiastically �legitimate� �

�Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of [Luther]; and I of [Calvin]; and I of [Wesley]; and I of [Rome]. Is Christ divided? was [Luther] crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of [Wesley]?� (I Corinthians 1:10�13 � as Paul might write it today)

Throughout his first letter to the Body of Christ at Corinth, Paul dealt with the problem of the divided Body � as both a barrier to the disciples' spiritual life and a betrayal of the Christ � since division is carnal and limits the divided Body to carnal life �

�And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of [Luther]; and another, I am of [Wesley]; are ye not carnal?� (1 Corinthians 3:1�4 � �Ken Howell revised version� )

In the eleventh chapter, Paul referred to Christ's symbols of the last supper, showing that he knew what they meant � and that he expected the saints of Corinth to know and honor this meaning.
The Corinthian disciples may have thought that Paul would congratulate them for being members of the Body or keeping up their �fellowship,� but he scolded them for coming together supposedly as one body while they divided themselves �


�I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you ... When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.�

Then he reminded them what the Lord had taught him about the meaning of the Body, the Lord's Supper, the loaf, and the wine �

�For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took a loaf: and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this loaf, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.�

We �show the Lord's death� by sharing the loaf and the cup � each person's torn-off piece of the loaf and sip of the cup are his parts of the whole, not a crumb or a cupful that's independent of the rest, since the one Christ gave His one body and His one blood for all of us � not a different body, nor a different spilling of blood, for each sinner's sins. As each one eats his morsel from the loaf and swallows his sip from the cup, he symbolically celebrates Jesus's death, when Jesus gave His one body and spilled his one supply of blood for all sinners' sins.

Each time we break a loaf and share a cup together, we're many dependent partakers of His single sacrifice, not independent beneficiaries of many one-for-each-of-us sacrifices. Modern Christian rituals cloud the issue; beautifully moulded individual wafers as �parts of the loaf� and sips from individual thimble-size cuplets don't show us one master loaf or one master cup as the single source of our tiny parts.

Each wafer and thimble are simply too discrete and individual to show that each is merely a part of one larger whole. Our understanding of their original symbolism therefore has to compensate for the confusion. We must see the bread as one loaf broken into bits for each of us, and see those bits as still parts of the one original loaf. We must see each sip of the wine as still part of the one original cup. (Just as a part that falls off my car is still part of my car, even though I may never find it, or someone else puts it on his car.)

Unless we see these bits as still parts of the whole, we can't so easily see Paul's main point: that Jesus's body now is one Body, no more divisible now than the body of Jesus of Nazareth was unconnected, unrelated bones, limbs, organs, and tissues.

Whenever we partake of the Lord's Supper, we certify that we see the Body of Christ as the one body that He meant for it to be. If we partake of the Lord's Supper but don't discern that the Body is one, we certify an understanding that either isn't there or that we knowingly betray in the same way that Peter did when he withheld himself from Gentile disciples whom he knew were God's as much as he was. Whether we see the Body as one, or we misunderstand that we can legitimately split it into pieces, we betray Him � as surely as Judas did.

The difference is that Judas meant to betray Him, while separatists are more likely to betray Him without meaning to or knowing that they do. This is why Paul warns all who betray the Body through division, separatism, or exclusivism that �Whosoever shall eat this loaf, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.�

The consequences, Paul knows, are dire. So he emphatically urges us to
� see to our understanding and intentions,
� see the importance of discerning and accepting the oneness �
� of the Body of Christ,
� consider the real spiritual impact of what we actually do when we �in the name of Jesus� separate ourselves from brethren who are as much His as we are, and
� straighten-up while we can, to avoid the terrible consequences of eating and drinking unworthily.

If we do this ourselves, this sin against Christ is forgivable. But sin that we persist in, that we preserve as �Christian� or excusable, is not forgivable until we repent of it, renounce it, forsake it, and beg His forgiveness for it. Judas didn't die because he couldn't be forgiven but because he didn't denounce his betrayal and ask Jesus to forgive him for it, as he could have done.

�But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that loaf, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation.� (1 Corinthians 11:17�34)

Christ prayed that the Body be one �

�Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.... That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.� (John 17:11, 21�22)

It was His fervent wish that all members of His Body love each other �

�This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.... These things I command you, that ye love one another.� (John 15:12, 15)

�A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.� (John 13:34)

As Paul reminded the saints in Rome, differences in spiritual maturity are normal in a healthy Body of Christ, not grounds for empty arguments about beliefs �

�Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth.... For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men.... We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.... Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.� (Romans 14:1�15:7)

For Jewish Christians (�they of the circumcision�), it was hard to put aside their exclusivist upbringing and accept Gentile saints as their equals in God's eyes. Even after God had made it clear to Peter that Cornelius and his house were acceptable to Him � and were therefore to be equally acceptable to Peter � Paul had to scold Peter for the same divisive spirit that ate at the core of the Body in Corinth �

�But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him� (Galatians 2:11�14)

Paul knew that Peter already knew better � before, during, and after his visit to the house of Cornelius.

During Peter's prayers one day, he got hungry; then God showed him a vision of animals let down from heaven � all kinds of animals � and told him, �Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.� When Peter answered, �Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean,� the voice from Heaven told him, �What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.�

All this occurred three times. While Peter wrestled with God's clear message and his own reluctance to condone anything that he'd been taught to consider �unclean,� Cornelius's messengers came to see him. The Holy Spirit told him to go with them. Peter went, and took other Jewish Christians with him, to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, where a number of would-be Christians had gathered to hear how they could come to know God.

�And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.�

Cornelius told Peter how he had sought God, Who had told him to send for Peter and where Peter was.

�Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.�

While Peter was telling them the Good News, the Holy Spirit came on them all. The Jewish Christians who were there with Peter were astonished to see the Holy Spirit � Whom they'd thought belonged only to the Jewish Christians � come upon these Gentiles. They knew that He had come upon the Gentiles, because they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.

Then Peter asked, �Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?� and had them baptized in the name of the Lord.

Word of this got to the other Jewish Christians, who accused him of betraying Christ by taking the Gospel to people who were �unclean� because they weren't Jews. Peter told them the story, beginning with the many kinds of animals and how the Lord had told him to eat, and �What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common� (this sounds grand and stately to us, but to Peter it was no doubt as blunt and clear as �Don't turn up your nose at what I�ve cleaned!�).

He told them how the Lord had told Cornelius that Peter would tell them the way of their salvation.

�And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?� (Acts 10:9�11:18)

When these Jews heard Peter's story, they no longer objected to his going to these Gentiles. Instead, they �glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.� The Body of Christ, until then all Jewish, thus accepted the idea that the Body was not to consist of Jews alone. So before he went to the house of Cornelius, Peter knew better than to turn-up his nose at anyone whom God had cleansed. Still, he turned-up his nose at Gentile Christians, whom he'd been eating with earlier, when Jewish Christians from Jerusalem came by. He'd earned that rebuke from Paul.

As Paul so clearly points out in 1 Corinthians, the Body of Christ � like the one loaf and the one cup shared by all in His name � is one, no matter how many individuals are parts of it �

�The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion [Greek koinonia, literally, the sharing or the having in common] of the blood of Christ? The loaf which we break, is it not the communion (the sharing) of the body of Christ? For we being many are one loaf, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one loaf.� (1 Corinthians 10:16�17)

Judas walked with Jesus as one with those who would later form the nucleus of the Body of Christ. He broke the loaf and took a part of it, and he sipped from the cup of the new testament in His blood � then he went out and betrayed Him. Judas ate of that loaf and drank of that cup unworthily, betraying his and Jesus's covenant of loyalty unto death.

But Jesus honored that tacit covenant understood in those days as the meaning of breaking a loaf together or sharing a cup of wine � If necessary, I will die for you rather than betray you and the covenant that we now signify by sharing this loaf.

By eating and drinking unworthily, Judas ate and drank damnation to himself. For this same cause today, many members of the Body of Christ are weak and sick, and many sleep in eternal separation from Kingdom life (they didn't straighten up when they had the time and the opportunity to judge their own motives and actions) �

�Wherefore whosoever shall eat this loaf, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that loaf, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.� (1 Corinthians 11:27�30)

Betraying his covenant with Jesus cost Judas his life, even though Jesus would have died for him. Because he didn't repent or ask Jesus to forgive him for his betrayal, Judas threw away the life that Jesus's loyalty to their covenant would have given him. (Matthew 27:3, �Then Judas ... repented,� uses another Greek word, not the one that�s used for the repentance that Jesus commanded. This verse simply says that Judas wished that his betrayal could be undone, not that he'd had a thorough change of heart in regard to his relationship with Jesus.)

What is �eating and drinking unworthily� today? Just as it was when Paul warned the Corinthians, it is not discerning the Body of Christ as a single body created by God and directed by the Holy Spirit � and as a result, separating yourself from the Body and its members while joining yourself to some other body (in particular, another body that separates some members of the Body from other members, but includes people who aren't members of the Body of Christ).

The church needs Paul's warning and exhortation more now than the Corinthian saints needed it then. Those in Corinth merely divided the Body, but the church divides it and binds its separated parts to others who are not of the Body � a double sin against Him.

Any community with Christians has non-Christians too. One sin of the church is that it separates the Christians in one church from those in another � and from those in neither. The matching sin of the church is that it includes not only members of the Body but also non-Christian churchgoers, unequally yoking believers with unbelievers.

The first sin is bad enough � the second more than equals it � the two are more than twice as bad as the one that Paul rebuked Peter and those Corinthian saints for. Amputated members wither and die apart from the Body. The Body needs all its members, who need each other for the unity and the fullness of the Body.

�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. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body ... and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.... now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.... now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.... Now ye (plural) are the body (singular) of Christ, and members in particular.� (1 Corinthians 12:12�27)

Refusing or failing to see the Body of Christ as His one Body is betrayal equal to Judas's. Then, one disciple's betrayal led to the death of Jesus. Later, many disciples' betrayal crippled the Body of Christ and led to the deaths of some of its members. The betrayal that Paul rebuked Peter and the disciples in Corinth for is now official �Christian� practice and honored tradition. What Paul wrote to members of the Body of Christ explains why so many in the Body are weak and sick � even dead today.

What Paul doesn't make clear is whether the weak, the sick, and the dead are paying for only their own or also for others' betrayal of the Body. What I see in the Body of Christ today makes me think that some disciples unknowingly sacrifice other disciples to weakness, sickness, and death through the betrayal of competitive separatism and combative division. Judas died for his betrayal � but so did Jesus.

Any way that you slice it, there's too much weakness, sickness, and death in the Body to suit me, and I'm sure that none of it is God's will. Nor is the cause always (if it is at all) the �flimsy faith� of those who ail and die.

These revealing passages from Paul's letter never show-up in the writings or teachings of those who spread the latest on �how to get healed,� �how to heal,� and even �how to teach others how to heal.�

If nothing else, it's time we at least look for answers that are less foolish than some that are being fed to suffering members of the Body � like the idea that to be healed, you have to give the Holy Spirit the precise medical term for your problem, so that He will then know how to treat it.

Otherwise, the next thing that's sure to come up will be the notion that medical specialists must pray for us so that they can tell the Holy Spirit not only the exact medical term for the problem but also exactly how to treat it. I don't know what hope that even this will offer to sufferers who have problems that the medical experts don't consider curable and therefore can't tell the Holy Spirit how to cure them.

In 1 Corinthians, in scriptures clearly written but consistently ignored by the Body, Paul explains in detail why so many in the Body are weak, sick, and dead. The reason is there, clear to anyone who is willing to see it. But since the cause is ecclesiastically sacrosanct, we cling to it anyway � and look to other �solutions� to the problem of diseases among people who shouldn't have them (even if we have to invent those solutions and then strive mightily to make our fakes work).

The cause that Paul identifies � as he learned of it from Jesus � causes physical and spiritual weakness, sickness, and death in the Body. It cripples the Body as it weakens, withers, and amputates parts. Yet we clasp it to the Body as if it were the most precious treasure that the Body can enjoy. Even after some of us recognize it for what it is, we cling to it saying, �What else can we do? What choice do we have? What else is there?�

The cause of all these diseases is the most insidious and the most pernicious disease of all � failure or refusal to see the Body of Christ as one indivisible Body, then dividing it � or at least by accepting separation and division as inevitable or even proper.

Isn't it time that we heed His word?

When the Body adopts the ways of the world, the Body brings shame upon itself. When the Body fails to follow one of its own basic, divine principles, it brings shame upon itself. Worse still, when the world adopts a basic principle of the Body that the Body rejects, the world heaps still greater shame upon the Body.

The church preaches one thing to the lost, then shows something else to the world and to its own babes � as though Jesus had said

�Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thy shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemy and hate your Brother.� (Matthew 5:43�44, as an �Unauthorized Revisionists' Version� might have it)

�Come to Jesus,� we evangelize, then by precept and example we add the usually unspoken, �but if you join that bunch, or any bunch but ours, we can't have anything to do with you.� This is the �theology� of the street gangs and their zealously jealous territorial fetishism of their �turf,� not the divinely prescribed modus operandi of the Body of Christ. At least one of our most populous denominations has split itself again and again into (by now) probably hundreds of subdenominational cells by now, always holding high its proud banner of separatism, inscribed �Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.�

This is an insane misapplication and corruption of 2 Corinthians 6:17, which these same deceived and deluded brethren then violate further by including in their �Christian� practice some of the very things that Paul referred-to directly in earlier verses of 2 Corinthians 6:14�18.
� unequally yoking believers together with unbelievers
� mixing things of Christ with those of Belial
� linking the temple of God with the stuff of idolatry

This huge fundamentalist denomination isn't alone in its theology of cleansing itself by separation from the rest of the Body. Since separatism is a basic church feature, any church can split along any seam at any time for any reason or none. Once the split widens, separation becomes opposition. It should be obvious to all by now that separation divides and division separates when we let it instead of clinging to Jesus and His love to stay one.

My father, a church trouble-shooter who specialized in sewing-up split church seams, finally succeeded in getting the two factions of one church back together after years of angry split and stiff resistance to reconciliation. Except for the man who had led one faction, all the members on both sides were more or less in agreement once more. Finally, even he grumpily agreed to make peace.

�Sam, I've known you all your life,� another man said to him, �and except for this business, you've never been hard to get along with. Just what was it that stuck in your craw this time?�

Sam looked bewildered. �Why, I don't recollect.� He turned to his wife � �Sadie, what got all this started, in the first place?�

Sadie remembered. �Which side of the Sunday School room to put the piano on.�

Forever vivid in my memory is a disciple of the late A A Allen, still following only Allen many years after Allen's death, storming out of a class discussion of Christian love because no one was talking about miracles, while angrily ranting that he had to obey the Lord's injunction to �Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate.� Those who were then babes in that group probably won't ever forget him, either. (No, Brother, I don't think that's what Brother Allen would've told him to do.)

Today, some of the worldliest and least godly thinkers, statesmen, and even politicians recognize the stupidity of insularism. If no country is an island totally independent of the rest of the world, nor is any man, surely it should be obvious to us in the Body that insularism or insularity has no place whatever in the Body of Christ.

The fetish of personal privacy, which has come to be even more isolationist than the old idea of �just me and my son John, my wife and his wife � us four and no more,� has become a mighty foe of the Body of Christ. The modern Christian has even less appetite for fellowship and more fear that it may interfere with his life. He likes the take-it-or-leave-it token �fellowship� of singing hymns at the back of a stranger's head for a few minutes each Sunday morning. Some churches' added �fellowship� of �Take a minute to shake hands with the person behind you,� even with the sometimes-added �and tell him `God loves you,'� is no less a parody and travesty of fellowship. Only a shade more like fellowship are church suppers, softball games, barbecues, and cake sales.

True fellowship is spiritual oneness that brings personal and social closeness without violating personal privacy. True fellowship in the Holy Spirit is a special grade of unity that blesses everyone and costs no one enough to notice. In true fellowship, all those who are in the local or momentary Body edify all by sharing all � burdens and blessings; needs and windfalls; problems and solutions; hungers of spirit, soul, and body, and the spiritual and physical food to assuage them. There's no place and certainly no special role for any gossip, meddling, manipulation, contention, or competition in true Body fellowship.

But division, separatism, individualism, and privacy are church and personal fetishes. The corresponding notion of �fellowship� is therefore pretty thin: when a Brother needs help, learn as little of it as you need to know, in as clinical a setting and in as neutral and as formal a way as possible, and pray for him � all together in the group or briefly at home, and always from afar. But be careful that you don't let his need drain a drop from your schedule, your wallet, or your heart. Pray for him, wish him well, and let God take care of him. (If he still needs help later, that's his problem. You've done your duty.)

The Body of Christ, like the family, is a prep school for your eternity in the kingdom of God. The church or family that doesn't prepare each of its members for the eternal love and rule of God in fellowship with all other members betrays itself, its members, and Jesus.

We have sunk so low in faith and obedience that now even the world teaches us by example what we're supposed to be demonstrating to the world. The church adopts the way of the street gangs but not the way of the statesmen who advocate the Christian wisdom of oneness. No one, two, or more Christians is independent of the rest of the Body � and certainly shouldn't be separated from or antagonistic to any other part of the Body.

In The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain tells of his visit to the Capuchin convent � and of the macabre decor of its chapel. On the walls of the chapel's six rooms, the monks had set, like tiles, the disarticulated bones of the four thousand monks who had died in that convent through several centuries. Their skulls sat ear-bone-to-ear-bone on shelves. Their kneecaps and toenails formed flowers, whose vines were formed from their vertebrae. Their other bones, separated and sorted, formed the murals of the other rooms � thousands of ribs for blades of grass, etc. (I have a haunting photograph of those shelves of skulls.)

Twain asked how long it had taken �to upholster these chambers,� and the monk guiding his party told him, �many, many centuries.� Twain said to the monk that there'd be stirring times in those parts if the last trump should blow (1 Corinthians 15:51�52).

And I heard the Lord say �That's what you've done with my Body.� I saw the shelves of Episcopal skulls, with rows of Baptist prayer bones on the floor beneath � Methodist and Presbyterian pelvises sitting in the corners � Lutheran carpals pointing at Pentecostal tarsals � and no brain, heart, or spirit anywhere in the decor.

Those dead monks don't care about their bones, but the Master cares about His Body. He doesn't want any part of it to decorate the devil's trophy rooms. He's calling His disciples' attention to a distinct shift of emphasis � from individual to collective Christian life. In the natural, you're one and I'm one � but we're in Christ, where His Body is one, and you and I are parts of it.

Copyright � 1986, Dr Kenneth E Howell
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