The last part of verse 22 and the beginning of verse 23 speak of “the church, which is His Body.” The Body is not an organization but an organism constituted of all the regenerated believers for the expression and activities of the head.
Whatever Christ, the Head, has attained and obtained is now being transmitted to His Body, the church. By means of this transmission the church shares with Christ all His attainments. The church shares in His resurrection from among the dead, His being seated in His transcendency, the subjection of all things under His feet, and His headship over all things. As the element of Christ is transmitted into the church, all that He has accomplished, attained, and obtained is transmitted into the church as well. Through this marvelous transmission we become the Body of Christ.
The Body is the issue of the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ who is continually being transmitted into us. According to our natural life, we are not qualified to be part of the Body. On the contrary, we are qualified only to be terminated and buried so that we can be resurrected. By nature, not even our spirit is qualified to be part of the Body. Before Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, the Body of Christ was not in existence. He had a number of followers, but He did not have the Body. The Body of Christ could not come forth from the incarnated Christ until He had been crucified to terminate the flesh, the natural man, and the entire old creation. After terminating all these things through His crucifixion, Christ entered into resurrection to germinate something new. Therefore, it was after His resurrection that the Body of Christ came into being. In our natural life and in the old creation we are not the Body. But we are the Body in the new creation germinated by Christ’s resurrection life. On the day of Pentecost, the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ, who was given to be Head over all things, began to transmit all that He had accomplished, attained, and obtained to the church. Since that day, this transmission has not ceased. This indicates that this transmission has a beginning but that it has no ending.
After all the wonderful steps taken by the Triune God-creation, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension-He came into the church with all His accomplishments. Thus, the church, the Body, is an entity altogether in resurrection and ascension with both the natural element and the old creation terminated. The Body, an organism in resurrection and ascension, is wholly in the new creation and has nothing to do with the old creation. Every part of the Body is of the new creation.
We all need to see that the Body has come into existence through the divine transmission from the resurrected and ascended Christ. Having ascended to the right hand of God, Christ continually transmits all that He is and all that He has obtained and attained into the church. It is in this way that the church, the Body, comes into existence. The Body comes from the transmission of the ascended Christ.
When Christ is transmitted into us, the transmission joins us to Christ and makes us one with Him. It is in this transmission that we have the church life and the Body functions. The heavenly transmission is to the church, which is His Body. By means of this transmission the Body is real, genuine, living, and aggressive.
In 1:23 Paul tells us that the Body is “the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” The Body of Christ is His fullness. The fullness of Christ issues from the enjoyment of the riches of Christ (3:8). Through the enjoyment of Christ’s riches, we become His fullness to express Him. This is the fullness of the One who fills all in all.
Christ, who is the infinite God without limitation, is so great that He fills all things in all things. Such a great Christ needs the church to be His fullness for His complete expression.
It is in the transmission that the Body of Christ is the fullness of the One who fills all in all, because the Christ who fills all in all is in the transmission. The transmission connects us to the all-filling Christ. In this way the church becomes the fullness of the all-filling Christ. By means of such a transmission, we are the Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.
The Body comes from the transmission of the all-inclusive Christ. To enjoy this transmission we need a sober mind, a fervent emotion, a submissive will, and a pure conscience. Through the experience of this transmission we become the Body. What we need today is more of this all-inclusive transmission.
Having considered Paul’s prayer for revelation in Ephesians 1:17-23, we can see why he considers the church the mystery of Christ. Paul entered into the full and completed revelation of this mystery of Christ, which is His mystical Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all. May we all be enlightened to see this mysterious aspect of the church.
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