If you read through the New Testament, especially in the writings of Paul, you will come across multiple uses of the phrase, “the body of Christ”. It is a little confusing because it is used in two different ways. Paul does that a lot.
At first, you might think it to be a metaphor. Actually, Paul does use the term metaphorically once in 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. The other instances are not metaphors, however.
There are two literal types of the body of Christ. The first is the actual body with which Jesus was born. I don’t imagine Jesus to be a big man. In my mind there was maybe 160 pounds of Him. That said, Jesus’ body is unique. First, it is the Son of God incarnate. Next, it is the only resurrected human body to date. What are the properties of Jesus’ human body at the present time? I don’t think anyone can say that they know.
This comes into play with the Lord’s Supper. The logical thing is to think that receiving the Lord’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper is a symbolic thing, but the arguments for this are all logical and not biblical and logic isn’t so helpful when we are talking about Jesus’ unique body. Keep in mind that Jesus took normal fish and bread, enough to feed one kid, and feed 5000 men and any women and children who were there and even had 12 baskets of leftovers.
Do you taste flesh and blood? No, thank God. But that doesn’t mean that God can utilize something like other dimensions to make this happen. One question to ask is why would I need to symbolically eat Jesus’ flesh and blood? The idea is offensive even symbolically. If this is just a cognitive exercise where we remember Jesus’ death and proclaim Him as our Savior, there are many less offensive ways to do that. So was Jesus being literal about this? The next question to ask is why would I need Jesus’ literal body and blood to be put in me in some fashion?
This question takes us to the other use of the phrase “body of Christ”? I have written about this passage recently:
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
John 17:20-23 (ESV)
Christians are unified not by language, culture, or even doctrine. We are unified by what Jesus describes above. It is some sort of connection to Him and consequently to each other. It is how the perfect life of Jesus becomes our righteousness. It is how His forsakeness on the cross becomes the fulfillment of the necessary punishment of our sins. It is how Jesus can still literally work through us. The phrase for it is “the mystical union”, but it is called a bunch of things in the New Testament (in Christ, in Him, even faith sometimes).
When we are united by the mystical union we are the mystical body of Christ. The Lord’s Supper has everything to do with mystical body of Christ. It is not just a celebration of it, nor is it the establishment of it; it is critical to the preservation of it.
56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
John 6:56 (ESV)
How does that work? What does it do? It is curious, but I don’t think the Bible tells us those details and I can’t even hazard a guess.
So when reading through something like 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, I find I have to identify for myself whether Paul is talking about the “body of Christ (mystical)” or the body of Christ (sacramental/actual) or both. Go look at it. 1 Corinthians 10:17 says we are one body (mystical). Paul rebukes them for the communion practice in 1 Corinthians 11:17-22. He doesn’t use the term “body” there, but his rebuke is because they are mistreating people who are part of the mystical body of Christ. in the next paragraph Paul recounts what we call the Words of Institution. Basically, what Jesus said at the first Lord’s Supper. Jesus said, “This is my body (sacramental/actual)” and “my blood” (sacramental/actual). Then in the next paragraph we have this:
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
1 Corinthians 11:27-29 (ESV)
Verse 27 says body and blood. That must be sacramental/actual, since the word blood isn’t used in connection with the mystical. How about verse 29? Using the rule that the last use of the term dictates what is meant here is a bad rule. The whole conversation is about the mystical body of Christ and how you treat it. I think that this is a double entendre. You should recognize the real presence of Jesus, but you should also recognize who you are united with and love them.
There was an actual physical consequence of doing it improperly. One should be baptized into the mystical body of Christ. The sacramental body of Christ is not meant for those outside the body. You should be at peace with those in the body. At least, you should not openly mistreat them.
Being part of the mystical body of Christ is hard to embrace. You don’t necessarily feel it, but thank God it is real.
Giving Christ 