Some Better Thing

 •  4 min. read  •  grade level: 6
The church is a body, called out during the time the Lord Jesus is rejected upon earth; we belong to a rejected Christ, our lot is cast in with God’s Son, whom the world has cast out. This characterizes the “better things” referred to by the Apostle when, speaking of the Old Testament saints, he says,....
The special company to which Christians belong is the better thing. There will be the display of the church in eternity.
“That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2:77That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:7)).
“Whatever place Christ has in heaven or on earth, the church has and will have with Him; if He is rejected, as now, she has the place of rejection, too; when He shall reign, she shall reign also. A wonderful thing is the better thing as to our standing and state in the glory, but all we can say to it is, that it is of God’s sovereign grace!
Now, in order to the existence of the Body of Christ, according to God’s ways, Christ as Messiah must first have been rejected by His people the Jews, be received up into heaven, and the Holy Spirit be sent down to form the Body; nor would it have been possible, save only in the counsels of God (Eph. 1:44According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: (Ephesians 1:4)), for the Body to have existed before Christ as the Messiah was rejected.
In the epistles you have clear statements of what the Body is and how it is organized. The Body of Christ is declared to be one.
“For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” (Eph. 5:3030For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. (Ephesians 5:30)).
“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.” (1 Cor. 12:1212For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:12)).
“So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” (Rom. 12:55So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. (Romans 12:5)).
“And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” (1 Cor. 12:2121And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. (1 Corinthians 12:21)).
It is not sufficient for you to be interested in Christ alone, to the exclusion of the church. He is the Head of His Body, and you cannot separate the head from the body; it would be death. God is interested in the Body of Christ and the Scriptures tell you what the Body of Christ is and how it is governed. In the present age there is the Body upon this earth, forming for the Lord’s glory to be His companion in the glory; and this One Body is the church of God, that even as the first Adam had his Eve, so the last Adam has His.
In the Epistle to the Ephesians the Apostle is instructing the Ephesians that they belong to a new family, a family they had never heard of before, a family whose design had been “hid in God.” God had created all things; but here He tells them something which for manifest reasons, had been “hid”. The Spirit of God in this epistle, as also in other epistles, brings out the wonderful calling of the church, the wonders of God’s resources; “the manifold wisdom of God.” It is, therefore, now no longer a mystery, and Christians should not be ignorant of the special place and blessing with which God had blessed them.
These, then, are the Christians guides; not the Glory in the cloud, or in the Tabernacle or in the Temple, as was presented to God’s people in the last age; but the Saviour in the glory, and the written Word, and the Holy Spirit down here. The real point of the Christian’s position, is that he professes to see the truth of the church of God, that God is visiting the Jews and Gentiles, and gathering out a people to His Name that God is preparing a Bride for His Son. The Bride, the One Body, characterizes the present age, nor is there any excuse of the Christian not to own this truth.