rmony, we are irresistible. Because of this, the devil will
do everything in his power to keep Christians from coming
into this place, and he has largely succeeded with
multitudes of professing Christians.
I trust that I will not shock you by saying that the
church, which is the body of Christ, is not an earthly
institution. Generally speaking, Christians have felt obliged
or impelled to produce some kind of institutional
organization through which they can tie themselves
together to achieve unity. Yet the truth of the matter is, this
does not produce the kind of unity God intends for the
body of Jesus Christ.
Under the Old Testament, God had a tremendous
problem with His people, Israel. He had revealed Himself as
One who could not be adequately represented by any kind
of portrait, picture or image. The attempt to make an image
of God was strictly forbidden. But we find again and again
that Israel fell into the error of making an image or idol and
saying it represented God.
I believe a corresponding mistake is made by Christians in
this dispensation. The body of Jesus Christ cannot be
represented institutionally. It cannot be represented as an
organization of the kind that we are familiar with in secular
life. But time and again, Christians try to make something
visible and tangible out of that which is spiritual. They try to
S
In the natural, if you are to have a symphony two things are certain: You must have a score, and
you must have a conductor. In the spiritual realm, if you are to have symphony, you must have
the same two things. The score is the will of God; the conductor is the Holy Spirit. In Matthew
18:19 we read: If two of you agree on earth. The Greek word for agree is precisely the same
word that gives us the word symphony. It is not mere intellectual agreement; it is harmony,
concord. It is two or more people being united in one spirit. When people come together in
one spirit, in harmony, agreeing on the will of God as revealed by the Holy Spirit, then anything
they need is accessible. This is a real promise, but you have to meet the conditions. V
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produce an organization, a union, a
tying together that will replace the
proper unity and relationship of the
body of Jesus Christ, and invariably
there is failure.
Take, for example, the Salvation
Army (and this is no criticism of the
Salvation Army). Within the Salvation
Army there is strong organizational
unity that is similar to that of an army.
And there is a further tying together
through uniforms so that you can look
at members and see immediately that
he or she is in the Salvation Army.
Everything man can do to produce
unity and organizational structure is
there, yet two people may be at
loggerheads with each other. So, far
from being in real union and harmony,
they may actually be in total
opposition. Two people may be in the
Salvation Army and one may be
converted and regenerated and the
other may be unregenerated. They
aren't even in the same spiritual
sphere!
Take for example the Anglican
church of Britain, in which I was
brought up. You could be a member of
the Anglican church and be
Communist or Roman Catholic.
Within that organization, bound
together by organizational structure,
there are diametrically different ideas,
totally opposed to one another, in
absolute disharmony, with no union
whatever in the spiritual life. The
church structure is an outward
substitute for the inward reality.
The great danger that I see is that
we often accept the outward as a
substitute for the inward, and then
neglect the inward. The result is that
today there are multitudes of
Christians within the body who are
in wrong relationship to other
people and they are not even aware
that anything is wrong.
One night in a service, five people
came forward for healing. I was led to
ask each person individually, Is there
any unforgiveness or resentment in
your heart against anybody? Out of
the five, three people said, Yes, there
is. I replied, Well, do you really
want me to pray for you? I can go
through the motions, but what kind
of effect do you think prayer is going
to have? And do you know what
they said? Wed better go away and
put things right and then come back.
Remarkable! But what was really
remarkable was that those people
were not conscious of the wrong
relationship. Why were they
deceived? Because they had allowed
some external substitute to blind
them to the inner reality. If we would
look at the inner condition of the
body of Christ today, we would be
shocked at what we saw!
Joints and Ligaments
If the outward union has nothing
to do with the inward spiritual
relationship within the body of
Christ, what is it that keeps the body
together? What is the true nature and
source of our unity? We find the
answer to this very important
question in two passages from
Ephesians and Colossians.
In Ephesians 4:16 Paul speaks
about Christ as the Head of the
body: From whom the whole body,
joined and knit together by what
every joint supplies, according to the
effective working by which every
part does its share, causes growth of
the body for the edifying of itself in
love.
In Colossians 2:19 in a similar
context, Paul speaks about Christ the
Head from whom all the body,
nourished and knit together by
joints and ligaments, grows with the
increase that is from God.
There are two things that Paul says
unite the members of the body: joints
and ligaments. Just as joints and
ligaments in the physical body keep
the members together, so they also
unite the members of the spiritual
body of Christ. What are the joints and
ligaments? I would suggest to you,
very practically speaking, that the
joints are the relationships between the
members of the body and the
ligaments are the attitudes that prevail
among them.
A persons arm has three bones.
Though each one is strong and
healthy, their effective functioning
depends on a joint, which is called
the elbow. Each of these bones could
be in itself perfectly healthy, and yet
the arm could be very ineffective if
the joint did not function properly.
This is also true of the body of Christ.
Your individual stability is not all that
is required to make you effective.
Your relationship to others is the joint
that fits you into the body, and unless
your relationship with other people is
right, you cannot be an effective
member of the body.
Again in Ephesians and Colossians
Paul speaks about the great ligaments V
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that unite the whole body. In
Ephesians 4:3 he says to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace. The words bond and ligament
are the same in Greek. And
Colossians 3:14 says, Put on love,
which is the bond of perfection
which keeps the entire body together.
The most essential bond or
ligament that can keep the body of
Christ together in true unity is love,
the second bond is peace. We are all
kept together as a whole by what I
choose to call the attitude of peace
and love. But when this attitude is
non-existent, the functioning of the
body is totally broken down. Where
we stand in wrong relationship to our
fellow Christians, the body cannot
function, nor can we receive what we
need ourselves. Not only do we shut
out others from the blessing, but we
are shut out ourselves. Yet my
experience in various situations and
among so many groups has been that
more than half the people in any
professing church congregation have
wrong attitudes and relationships to
other people, and quite commonly
these wrong relationships are with
other members of their congregation.
On one occasion, after preaching
in a certain Pentecostal church where
God really moved, I went to another
Pentecostal church and preached the
same messages. But at this second
church, nothing happened. I thought,
What's wrong? Do you know what I
discovered? It was a church of about
four hundred people who regularly
attended on Sunday, and yet the
church was divided right down the
middle. The people on my right hand
had not spoken to the people on my
left hand for five years. When they
approached one another in the street
they crossed the road in order to
avoid speaking. Consequently, for me
to preach to those people was a waste
of breath and time, since there was no
possibility of the Holy Spirit moving
in that church. Ironically, I have
found in so many similar
circumstances that the people in such
a congregation are ready to blame
their pastor or hire another evangelist
or do anything except the one thing
they must do, which is to get right
with one another.
Family Relationships
It is a fact of life that potentially, and
often experientially, our most
dangerous, harmful, poisonous
relationships are with the people with
whom we are the closest. One
particularly common relationship
problem is that of young people and
their parents. I would venture to say
that the majority of young people in the
United States are in some measure in
opposition to or rebellion against their
parents, and, in many cases, the parents
have to acknowledge a major share of
the blame. The problem, then, is not
juvenile delinquents but also adult
delinquents.
Nevertheless, I always