Christ's Bride & Body

Ephesians 5:29
“After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church.”

Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I am a month behind in my typical writing schedule. Many things in life have been happening at once, which has thrown a wrench in my usual newsletter routine. With that said, today I’ll be picking back up on the topic of why Christians need the Church. After this series, I plan to take a break from my bi-weekly posting schedule. I hope to continue writing on an irregular basis as I seek to prioritize other parts of life in this current season I’m in. I pray that the rest of this series will continue to be an encouragement to you as it has been for me, and I pray that God would be glorified as we study His Word together on this topic.

So far, I’ve talked about how the church isn’t perfect and about how God describes the Church—all believers—as a family. In today’s post I want to cover two other depictions of the Church from Scripture which reinforce the truth that Christians need biblical community. I’ll be discussing the Church as Christ’s bride and as His body. The passage I want to start with is where the opening verse for today’s post comes from, Ephesians 5:22-33.

Usually this passage is referenced when dealing with the topic of marriage. However, it beautifully connects the ideas found elsewhere in the New Testament that Jesus views the Church as both His bride AND His body:

Ephesians 5:22-33
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Rightly so, we often use these verses to explain the biblical roles of the husband and wife in a marriage relationship. But Paul makes it abundantly clear that this analogy is really depicting our Savior’s view of His redeemed people, the Church.

Photo by Hisu lee on Unsplash

First, we see the description as Christ being “the head of the church, his body” in the instructions of how wives should submit to their husbands. Then we see even more key descriptions of Jesus’ relationship with His people in the lengthy commands for the husband. We see Jesus’ love being compared to that of how a husband should love his wife: “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” and “husbands out to love their wives as their own bodies…After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body.” Finally, when quoting Genesis 2 on how a husband and wife “become one flesh,” Paul explicitly explains that this is a mystery “about Christ and the church.”

So what does this imagery have to do with the argument that Christians need the Church? This Ephesians passage emphasizes the connection between Jesus Christ our Savior and His people. It’s not saying that Jesus is personally like a husband to each individual believer. It’s not saying that each Christian represents Christ’s body on his or her own. Paul’s purpose in writing is to describe how valuable the collective, universal Church is to Jesus Christ. These truths show us how important the Church is to God, which point us to how important the Church should be to those of us who’ve been saved into it.

Where else do we see in Scripture these images of the Church being Christ’s bride and body? One passage from the book of Revelation, written by the Apostle John, helps reiterate the imagery of the Church being Christ’s bride:

Revelation 19:6-8
Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
“Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad
and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean,
was given her to wear.”
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)

That passage comes from the vision that Jesus gave John about what it will be like when God comes to dwell once again and forever with His people in heaven. I love this picture of “a great multitude” praising the Lord together, all celebrating the wedding of Christ the Lamb and His bride the church. That day will be a celebration for all who have called on the Name of the Lord and have been saved. We should rejoice now that we are not and have never been alone in our faith—we are part of the bride waiting for her Groom, and we have the hope and promise of one day truly being united with Him and with each other for eternity.

The last passage I want us to read today is 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul gives us a much more in-depth description of what it means to be Christ’s body. I know it’s a longer one, but I think it’s so important in expressing why we need other believers.

1 Corinthians 12:12-27
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

…in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

What I love about this passage is that it is such an easy to understand metaphor. I’m such a practical person, and truths that are just plainly spelled out for us to understand are a real blessing to me. God created each individual believer unique and for a special purpose in His kingdom. Yet God also created each believer to be a part of the whole, to live in unity and love with the rest of His people. When we as Christians participate in a local church, we are more able to live out our unique roles that God designed for us. When we are a part of the Body, we experience more of the blessings God purposed for His Church.

So many things about our culture push us to focus on self, and isolation is even glorified at times. Yet this is not what we were saved into! We get to represent the beautiful bride of our Savior when we participate in a local church. We get to experience the fullness of being a part of Christ’s body. Blessings flow from acknowledging that God’s design for us is best for us. Living in biblical community enables us to come alongside others to recognize and fight sin, to encourage and pursue righteous living together, and to humbly walk in the realization that we can do nothing on our own. Praise God for all the passages of the Bible that demonstrate what being His people means!

In my next and last post of this series, I will be writing about a pretty popular topic: church hurt. I want to tie in the biblical reasons for why biblical community is worth it as we look to God’s Word to wrestle against our hurts and problems with the Church. Until then, thanks again for joining me in this series and for following Speaking Truth!