Bud Hancock brings you another article, in two parts, considering the Body of Christ. Here is the first part, the second should appear tomorrow. Bud considers these two amongst the most important articles he has ever written, thank you Bud for sharing them with my readers.

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

The Body of Christ – Part One

By Bud Hancock

Introduction

I‘ve heard the term, “Body of Christ”, used by many preachers, teachers, commentators and authors, and generally, their use of the term seems to refer to the Christian Church in general on this earth, but let me clarify that by saying the term should be referring to the TRUE church, the “ecclesia”, that firmly holds to the beliefs taught by Jesus, and not any individual denominational organization.

Many are the religious groups today that place most of the emphasis of their sermons and outreach on their religious organizations and NOT on the Body of Christ, Who He is and what the term really means.

The Apostle Paul, who wrote two thirds of the New Testament, mentions “The Body of Christ” more than a dozen times in his letters to the believers in Ephesus, Rome, Corinth,  Colossae, Thessalonica and to the Hebrews. With the amount of revelation given to him by God, we should be able to learn much about the Body of Christ from his words.

From the time that God first prophesied about the coming of “the seed of the woman” who would bruise the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15), much has been learned about this precious “seed”. His coming was foretold by almost every Old Testament prophet, and studying the scriptures related to those prophecies will open up a whole new world of understanding for the believer.

In Isaiah 52:7), God describes “the seed of the woman” as the “one whose feet are beautiful on the mountains because He brings good tidings, He publishes peace, He brings good tidings of good, He publishes salvation and says to Zion: Thy God reigneth”. However, in Isaiah 53:3-11, we are told of the horrible sufferings that “the seed” was to endure by being the sacrifice that was meant to redeem all mankind back to a relationship with God.

Isaiah speaks of the terrible affliction the seed went through, the realization of the pain and suffering that was to come upon the precious seed, not because of His own sin or rebellion but for the sin and rebellion of all humanity. In that suffering, the human race was given one of the greatest blessings ever, but so few Christians understand just what that gift included. I hope to open that understanding somewhat in this article.

Christ, the Messiah

One of the greatest errors still existent in the Church, the Body of Christ if you will, is the lack of understanding of Who, and What Jesus of Nazareth, is. In the first place, His “last name” is NOT Christ. Yes, He was named Jesus, (Yeshuah) and He was from Nazareth, so it is completely OK to refer to Him as Jesus of Nazareth. And yes, the Bible refers to Him as Jesus Christ, but therein lies the problem. The translators of the Bible knew how to translate certain Hebrew and Greek words into English, but in that translation, a great deal of critical information was lost, and that loss now prevents many, if not most, Christians from obtaining a true understanding of our Saviour.

God made sure that His Redeemer, whose arrival was prophesied in the Garden of Eden, was properly described through His prophets. I feel certain that God never wanted the full knowledge and true understanding of His Redeemer to be hidden from the very people He was sent to redeem. Through the Prophet Isaiah, God told the Jewish people, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). In these few words, God indicated the dual personage of Jesus: He was “born” as a Jewish child to the Jewish nation, indicating His complete humanity, but He was also “given”, sacrificially, as the Son of God and was to become the Head of the government of all people, indicating His complete deity. He was, and is, both God and man.

The Real Meaning of “Christ/Messiah”

The word translated as Christ in the KJV Bible is a transliteration of the Greek word “Christos” (Strong’s 5547, pronounced khris-tos’, from the base word, “chrio” Strong’s 5548, pronounced khree’-o, through the idea of contact, to smear or rub with oil, by implication, to consecrate to an office or religious service, to “anoint”).

The word “Christ”, when properly understood, and associated with Jesus of Nazareth, is referring to WHAT Jesus IS, and He IS the “Messiah”. The Greek word Christos is a translation of the Hebrew word, “Mashiach” or Messiah in English and the original meaning is “one who is anointed”, so referring to Jesus as The Christ is identifying Him as the One Who is anointed, but the real question is “anointed with what”?

In Luke 4:1-13, Jesus had recently been baptized by John the Baptist in the River Jordan, had just gone through forty days of being tempted by Satan in the wilderness and after defeating every attempt of Satan to cause Him to sin, Jesus returned “in the power of the Spirit” into Galilee. He arrived in Nazareth where He had been raised and He went into the synagogue on Sabbath and stood up to read. He was given the book of the prophet Isaiah, and He found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord” ( Luke 4:18-19). He explained to all listening in the synagogue that day that He had just fulfilled the prophecy of the words He read, the prophecy given by Isaiah nearly 800 years earlier of Jesus’s purpose on the Earth.

In those two short verses, Jesus clearly explained the reason He was sent by God and what His purpose on Earth was to be from that day forward to the end of the Church age. He explained that He had been anointed by God with the Holy Spirit to do six specific things:

• Preach the gospel (good news) to the poor
• Heal the brokenhearted
• Preach deliverance to the captives
• Preach recovering of sight to the blind
• To set at liberty them that are bruised
• Preach the acceptable year of the Lord

He stopped reading at that point because the following verses relate to the second appearance of Jesus and the wrath that He will reveal at that appearance. His first appearance on Earth was to accomplish the things He mentioned in Luke 4, and to build His Church that would take the message  and purpose of His first appearing to the entire world.

We all know that Jesus only ministered in the flesh for approximately three and one half years before He was crucified, buried, resurrected, and ascended into Heaven, so how can it be that His ministry on Earth was to be the fulfillment of the  aforementioned purposes until the end of the Church age, which has not yet happened nearly 2000 years after His ascension?

The Body of Christ

God’s plan for the preaching of the gospel had been prepared well before the foundation of the world, and that plan involved building, NOT an organization, but a living ORGANISM, that would become the Church, the Ecclesia, the Body of The Anointed One.

The physical body of Jesus was sanctified (set apart) from His birth, as He was destined to be the perfect sacrifice that would provide redemption for all mankind. His entire life before He was anointed with the Holy Spirit was marked by his sinlessness, holiness and righteousness, yet, until He was baptized by John in the River Jordan, tempted by Satan and returned “in the power of the Spirit”, He accomplished no major works.

Even though He was sinless and His flesh and blood body was perfect, Jesus’s ministry was accomplished by having the anointing “without measure”. He  was constantly led by the Holy Spirit to travel to certain cities, to visit various groups of people considered to be sinful, and at times to heal those who were sick and afflicted. Everything He did and everything He said was under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He was the spiritual and physical role model for every person who would ever accept Him as Redeemer and Lord.

While in His flesh and blood body on this Earth, He always did what the Father told Hin to do and said what the Father told Him to say. He was in such close contact with His Father that He became the perfect extension of the Father. He told the disciples, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). His perfect earthly body became the perfect and complete sacrifice that paid the cost of the sin of all mankind forever.

After His resurrection, and before His ascension, He appeared to His disciples and gave them the commandment that would usher them into the same ministry He had before His crucifixion. He commanded them to remain in Jerusalem until they had received the promise of the Father, that is, the baptism with the Holy Ghost. After that event, they would be able to function in the same power and authority as Jesus had in His Earthly ministry.

The Miraculous Works of Jesus, the Anointed One

We are told many times in the gospels that Jesus healed the sick wherever He went. For example, in Matthew 4:23, “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.”

Remember back to the scripture  where Jesus read from Isaiah about “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me” and being “anointed” to accomplish the works that Isaiah had prophesied about. All those were accomplished wherever Jesus went BECAUSE He was anointed with the Holy Spirit. At His human conception, He emptied Himself of His divine reputation and took on himself the likeness of man, fulfilling God’s plan to redeem man back to Himself using a perfect human sacrifice.

What Is A “Christian”?

The first recorded use of the word “Christian” is in Acts 11:26, where the disciples of Jesus were first called “Christians” at Antioch where the Church was rapidly growing. The disciples of Jesus were actually imitating the Lord and miracles were occurring; the word of the gospel and the power associated with it had spread rapidly and more and more people were turning to the Lord and becoming believers and disciples, true Christians.

But what, exactly, is a Christian? According to most dictionaries, the word is defined as “being a follower of Christ”, and that is true to a certain extent, but it goes way beyond just being a follower. The disciples at Antioch were more than mere followers, they were doers of the same works that Jesus did.

Remember the word “Christ” means “the one who is anointed” and per Jesus’s words in Luke 4, we know the anointing is the Holy Spirit of God residing in and on a believer. And we also know that without that anointing being in and on Jesus, He would have been merely a righteous Jewish teacher. He would not have performed any miraculous works without the Anointing.

Another definition of “Christian” is “to be Christlike”, or to be “like Christ”. But what does that mean? Only by reading the gospels and understanding what Jesus said and did during His 3½  years of ministry can we have a full understanding of being “Christ-like”.

God-like/Christ-like

Wherever He went, teaching those who would listen to Him, He always said the works He did were actually being done by the Father Who dwelt in Him. This is further indication that the Anointing He received was the power in and on Him that allowed Him to do miracles. His life was proof that Jesus was “God-like” in every word He spoke and all the actions He did.

There are more than forty verses in the gospels that mention Jesus healing people of various sickness and disease. Some were brought to him because of the spreading word that a miracle-worker was in the land; others occurred when Jesus saw a sick person and healed them on the spot. He also raised the dead several times and presented the formerly dead persons back to their families.

In many instances He cast out evil spirits and demons that had taken up residence in people. There is not one instance of Jesus refusing to heal anyone who was sick and who asked Him to heal them, or demon-possessed and who asked Him to deliver them. He freely had received of the Father and He freely gave to all who were in need.

Jesus lived His life on earth totally dependent on His Father and was the epitome of being “God-like”. He did the mighty works we read about because He always obeyed the Father while He was, in essence, showing the Father to all the people He ministered to. I mentioned earlier that Jesus was the perfect “role model” for all believers; per Wikipedia, “A role model is a person looked to by others as an example to be imitated”. The definition of “role model” explains what we, as Christians are expected to do in order to be considered “Christ-like”, or Christians, the Body of Christ.

Jesus knew that He would ascend to heaven some days after His resurrection and would no longer be present physically on the Earth; hence He knew that for His ministry to continue and achieve what God had intended, He would need to build a Church made up of disciples who could do the same works He had done while on Earth. Shortly before His ascension, He met with His eleven disciples in Galilee and gave them these words:

“All power (authority) is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore into all the world and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world (age). Amen” (Matthew 28:18-19).

Born and raised in a small textile town in North Carolina, Bud’s family moved to Michigan in the hope of finding better employment with General Motors.  After graduating from high school, Bud began an apprenticeship with General Motors to become a Metal Modelmaker.  Retiring after a 30 year career, which included an eight year stint as a Metrologist (Science of high precision measurement), he and his wife moved back to North Carolina to be near his elderly parents.  Shortly thereafter, with both of his parents having passed, he began a new career in the bank security/ATM business, advancing from an entry level technician to one of two North Carolina customer service managers for his employer.  Retiring again after 13 years, he and his wife of 51 years relocated to Tennessee where Bud began writing articles emphasizing Biblical teaching and geopolitical issues.  At age 75, he and his wife relocated to South Carolina with their Miniature Schnauzer, Baxter.  Bud continues to study God’s word and write articles on Christian living and geopolitical issues from the Biblical end times  perspective.