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God's Word
Let's be honest, without the personal indwelling of Christ there can be no part in the Mystical Body. She cannot exist for sects that deny Christ's lordship because Jesus is not present in individuals there.
No Christ therefore no Christian! No Christian therefore no Body of Christ! Communion is actual for a Christian prisoner of conscience in a frozen Siberian labor camp because, and only because, Christ is burning in the warmth of that person's heart.
"When I am by myself, I am the entire Body of Christ" 1 The solitary individual believer shivering in a dark prison cell and two thousand worshipping followers in a cavernous cathedral both know the indwelling of Jesus!
Entire Body of Christ
When Christ comes into a person's heart, nothing will ever be the same again. A spiritual implosion destroys the old to create the new! God's chain reaction detonates atomically in our cells when we become part of the Mystical Body.
Dr. Paul Brand suggests, "As a result of this stuff-exchange, we carry within us not just the image of, or the philosophy of, or faith in, but the actual substance of God." 2
Genetically like Christ
The thinker Carl Jung agrees, "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: If there is any reaction, both are transformed." 3 Kierkegaard adds, "God cannot make man his equal without transforming him into something more than man."
Image of God
What does "God's image" mean? Is the image of God perhaps what distinguishes human beings from animals? In being drawn into the Mystical Body, humans are irresistibly transformed into the image of God. We look at our reflection in the mirror. A son may be the image of his father. Adam was one hundred and thirty years old when he became the father of Seth. The Bible describes Seth as, "a son in his own likeness, according to his own image." 4
A daughter may have the same facial appearance as her mother or may display her mannerisms or idiosyncrasies. An image therefore may mean more than appearance, maybe similarities of gestures, even like thinking.
Association of a Person and God
An image denotes an association between a person and God. Paul describes the destructive results of idol worship on people and explains, "and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles." 5
An idol-image here replaces the God-image that marks the relationship between a human and the Creator. Mortals are intended to be God-images but often become idol-images by being sucked into an overpowering attraction to something other than God.
Though individuals are made in God's image, they often try to make God into their own likeness in order to control and influence him. They are more comfortable when God is like them for he will not shock them by his non-human and godly reactions.
A group of ordained clergy at a conference were asked to write down what God was like. Virtually all of the characteristics they named were human qualities, even anger. The special attributes like omnipotence, an all-knowing nature or an eternal presence were not mentioned even by men and women of the cloth. They wanted a God like themselves who they could relate to but without any of his "super-qualities." To be honest, we hate God interfering in our lives because he is so unpredictable.
Incorporated into God's Community
By being given God's image, human beings are incorporated into God's community. God says at the creation, "Let us make man (Hebrew "Adam") in our likeness." 6
Although in our modern language "man" has come to mean "male," in this context as in early English the word "man" includes both sexes. Genesis explains, "For in the image of God has God made man (the human race)." 7
Questions for Discussion
1. How is your ministry valuable, meaningful and fulfilling?
2. How do you communicate with God? How does God communicate with you?
Notes
1Michael Peers, the former Anglican Primate of Canada 2Dr. Paul Brand 3Man in Search of a Soul - Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 4Genesis 5.3. 5Romans 1.23. 6Genesis 1.26,27. 7Genesis 9.6
Parents + Holy Spirit = CHRISTIAN
(Human) + (Divine) = (Spiritual)
(Dies) + (Eternal) = (Lives on after death)
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