Dr. Michael D. Halsey
Chapter 8
THE
UNITY OF THE BODY
Irony
is a sophisticated technique, but it has a special appeal when it occurs in real
life. Irony
occurs when a person’s words have a deeper meaning, which the speaker
doesn’t realize at the time.
A case in point: when France surrendered to Germany and the French
ministers and civil servants were leaving Paris to go to the new capital
There were two American films playing in Paris.
One was “Going Places,” and the other was “You Can’t Take It with
You.”
John
is fond on dramatic irony.
One of the ironies he included in his gospel account is in chapter 11,
verses 49-50 when the Lazarus effect swings into motion.
The religious leader, Caiphas, is giving advice to the other religious
leaders who are upset because Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead and people
all over Jerusalem were in an uproar over Him.
Caiphas
said, “It would be better for one man (meaning Jesus) to die for the people
than that the whole nation perish.”
He was saying that it would be better to put this “Insurrectionist”
down so that the Romans wouldn’t have to come and deal with the unrest
fomenting in the nation.
But his words are ironic because Jesus will die as a substitute for His
people, but not in the way Caiphas thinks.
We
read another irony in 10:16 where Jesus says that when He lays down His life,
that it’ll be the basis of making Jewish and gentile believers one.
These were trigger words to the religious leaders who didn’t realize
that the very death they were plotting would be the very means of making this
new community.
Community.
People are hungry for it.
God has created a community and community is important to Him.
Even before His creation of this new community, it was important to Him
that there be community among His people.
Community was so important that He devotes a psalm to it (133).
In
Genesis, we see that Joseph understood the importance of community in his day,
long before the day of Ps. 133, and that explains why he put his brothers
through certain tests—he wanted to see if they’d learned “community”
since they broke it when they’d sold him into slavery.
What
is this “community” that’s so important to God?
It’s not holding hands and singing “Cum Ba Ya.”
Community has stronger bones than that warm fuzzy.
Community is like a beard—can’t define it, but we know one when we
see one. People
saw community in 1980 when the U.S. Olympic Hockey team beat Russia for the gold
medal. That
team had it and you could see it.
The
most famous feud in American History serves well here to help us define it.
The Hatfields and the McCoys are infamous because of their family feud.
Their community was so strong that if you attacked one Hatfield, you
attacked all Hatfields.
Hurt one Hatfield and all Hatfields come at you because they’re blood
“kee-un.” The
Hatfields are united in another way—they all shared one goal—kill all McCoys,
every last one of them.
What
did the Hatfields do for a living?
Most likely some were farmers, some were merchants, maybe one drove a
stagecoach and another was a miller.
The fact that they were from different occupations made no difference.
They were Hatfields, so, no matter their various occupations, they had a
community based on blood and a common goal.
Does
this mean that the Hatfields always agreed?
No. Some
were backward and liked turnip greens, while those who didn’t have the palate
of a collie enjoyed more sophisticated food.
Maybe some Hatfields advocated that all McCoys be shot, while others
argued that all McCoys should die a slow death by torture.
They might disagree over the method, but not the goal.
If a McCoy attacked the Hatfield who argued for bullets, it was the
Hatfield who argued for torture that come to his rescue.
It’s
amazing the community God has made.
In Ephesians 2:15-16, God calls this community the “new man.”
What God has done in the church is to take the Hatfields and the McCoys,
put them together and make a community out of them.
Jews had such an aversion to gentiles that they felt dirty if they went
into their houses or bumped into them on the street.
Behind their backs they call them animals. (Galatians 3:28-29)
What
kind of community is the church’s community?
Like the Hatfield’s, it’s based on blood and a goal.
The believer is born into a family, God’s
Then
we share a common goal based on issues.
Our goal is to make disciples (Matt. 28) as we glorify God together (I
Cor. 10:31). Now
we have the strong bones of our community: organic and issue-driven.
This
community is so important to God that he gave us pictures to help us understand
it: vine/branches;
bride/groom; head/body.
I Cor. 12:13;
Rom.
12:5; I Cor. 12:25-27; John 15
Does
this mean that the community will always agree?
Yes and no.
The community will always agree on the doctrines we’re looking
at—deity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, inspiration of Scripture, ect.
But the community won’t agree on sprinkling or immersion; King James
Version or NIV; red or blue carpet in the nursery.
Nonetheless, the organic and issue-driven community stands strong.