Where, Oh, Where Can it Be?
“But this I confess to you, that according
to ‘the Way’ which they call a sect, so I
worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which
are written in the Law and in the Prophets.” (Spoken
by the Apostle Paul in Acts 24:14)
If Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,
and if the church is His Body of which He is the head,
then it follows that the church must also be unchanging
in its essential nature. In other words, “the Way”
(as the church was called in the first century) cannot be
any other way than the way it was when it was “the
Way.” And what way was that? It was the way it was
in the beginning, in Acts 2:44-47 and 4:32-35, when they
were one heart and one way, just as the prophet Jeremiah
foretold.
All who believed were together, and had all things in
common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided
them among all, as anyone had need? Now the multitude of
those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither
did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his
own, but they had all things in common. And with great power
the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Nor was there
anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors
of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of
the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’
feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.
But that is not the way it is now. Evidently a mutation
has occurred, as the church no longer resembles its original
pattern. What happened to the visible demonstration we can
read about in Acts 2 and 4, the result of the first preaching
of the gospel by those who had actually been with Christ?
To find out, let’s look at a couple of definitions.
Ethereal — 1. of or relating
to the regions beyond the Earth 2. lacking material substance:
immaterial, intangible.
Corporeal — 1. having, consisting
of, or relating to a physical material body; not immaterial
or intangible: substantial. 2. of or relating to a person’s
body, especially as opposed to his spirit; tangible, material,
seeable, touchable.
The first century church was corporeal, not ethereal.
It was the visible, tangible manifestation of the salvation
found in Christ, revealed through a concrete expression
of Christ’s life and love in His Body. Only a corporeal
witness of the Body of Christ can fulfill His new commandment
in John 13:34-35 and His last prayer in John 17:23, just
before His crucifixion:
“A new commandment I give to you, that
you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also
are to love one another. By this all people will know
that you are My disciples, if you have this love for one
another.” (John 13:34-35)
“I in them and You in Me, that they may
become completely one, so that the world may know that
You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have
loved Me.” (John 17:23)
The love and unity among His disciples must be visible
to the world to prove that God did indeed send His Son into
the world to save it. The world cannot believe unto salvation
without seeing this unity among His disciples, whose obedience
to His word sets them apart from the rest of the world.
This is what sanctified means: set apart, made
distinct, undefiled spiritually and physically.
The Body of Christ can be compared to a ship on the open
seas, 
carrying
all the passengers safely to their destination. A ship is
in the ocean, but not of the ocean. Imagine
a bunch of people just floating around separately, treading
water in the ocean, all claiming to be safely on the same
ship going to the same destination. Ridiculous!
In the beginning, the church was like that ship, and its
structure was community. What does the life of the first-century
disciples in Jerusalem document if not the Master’s
commandment in John 13:34-35 and His prayer in John 17:21-23?
It was a detailed expression which elucidated His prayer
and His command to His disciples, throwing light upon the
commandments. That life was the blueprint of
the Body of Messiah.
That outward expression of community was the nucleus
that was to replicate itself throughout the world. The Jerusalem
pattern was to be only the beginning of the corporate, corporeal
Body of Christ. For example, Paul commended the Thessalonian
church for following the same pattern that was expressed
throughout the churches in Judea, observing that they
were also persecuted because of that radical demonstration
of their faith.
Living in community, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
purifies all those within it. Experientially, you are truly
made complete spiritually. The spiritual strongholds in
your life caused by your sin are broken down by the loving
hands of those committed to you in the same life. Jeremiah’s
prophecy of the New Covenant can only be fulfilled by
this life in community, which is the only way you can actually
become one — having one heart and one way, unified
in every aspect of your being, growing up into the head,
which is Messiah. There you grow to live in absolute
unity, just as the Savior prayed for in John 17:23 —
“one as the Father and Son are one” —
a unity which makes no room for denominations.
The outward, visible unity of the early church was the
outcome of love reaching the innermost parts of everyone
who believed. The gospel had cut them to the heart
and the outcome was absolute surrender to the sovereignty
of Messiah over them. This was expressed through the corporeal
witness of the Body, the reality of their salvation. There
were no solo disciples doing whatever they felt God wanted
them to do, independent of each other. A real body doesn’t
work that way. “All who believed were together?”
Their love for each other was real — corp-o-real.
They had truly believed in Messiah and therefore
were grafted into His Body through baptism, surrendering
their independent existence. Those 3,000 surrendered lives,
added to the original 120, comprised not an ethereal
body, but a real body of believers living together
in community. Their love was real and visible, and their
unity was real and visible, lived out daily as the corporeal
expression of the Body of Christ.
Sadly, Christianity today expresses quite a different
response to Messiah’s call to discipleship. Church
leaders everywhere accept the impossibility of such a corporeal
expression of the Body of Christ with sayings like, “Let’s
agree to disagree,” and, “We’re only human,”
and, “The flesh is just too strong,” and, “We’ll
be one in heaven.” Unfortunately, that “pie-in-the-sky”
unity won’t do the world any good, since, according
to the Savior, they need to see a demonstration
of that unity in order to believe that the Father sent the
Son. After all, if His sacrifice wasn’t sufficient
to set His followers free from the sin that divides them,
then what evidence is there that He died and rose again
on their behalf?
Spiritualizing the words of Christ so as to avoid simply
obeying them only produces an ethereal result — wispy
and mystical. But the first church actually was said to
“turn the world upside down.” Its effect was
far from ethereal. It was corp-o-real.
When the church is restored to its original foundation
and pattern — that real body and real
life that results from the reality of “all who believed
were together” — then there will be hope for
the world to believe that the Father sent His Son. Then
the church can truly grow with a growth that is from God,
increasing to the full stature of Messiah, as a Bride
prepared for her King.16 And only then will her King return
for His Bride to establish His kingdom on this earth.
Hebrews 13:8
Colossians 1:18
Jeremiah 32:39
John 17:15-19
Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-35
elucidate — make free from confusion
or ambiguity; make clear and comprehensible.
John 14:15,21,23,24
1 Thessalonians 2:14
Jeremiah 31:31-34; 32:38-41
Ephesians 4:11-16
Acts 2:44
John 17:23
John 8:36
Colossians 2:19
Ephesians 4:11-16
Revelation 19:7-8
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