In this chapter and the next chapter, we want to see four crucial matters for the organic building up of the Body of Christ. The church is not a congregation or an organization. The New Testament tells us emphatically that the church is the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23; Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:12). A person’s body is not an organization but an organism. A wooden stand is a lifeless organization of pieces of wood that have been put together. Christ’s Body, however, is an organism. A newborn child is not brought into being by organization but is begotten, conceived, and formed organically in his mother’s womb. His birth is altogether a matter of life. The church also was born of God, in Christ, through Christ, and with Christ to be the Body of Christ. Thus, the church is altogether organic.
In the Old Testament there is a type concerning the church as the Body of Christ. This is the type of Eve. God created a man, but He did not create a woman. God took a rib out of Adam, and with that rib, He built a woman (Gen. 2:22). This woman became Adam’s counterpart. Adam’s counterpart came out of him and was given back to him to be attached to him. Eve was the second part of this complete human being. A man is a unit but not a complete unit. The wife is the counterpart of the man. The husband and wife make a complete “melon.” The husband is one half, and the wife is the other half. When they come together, they match each other to make a complete unit. This is why the Bible says that it was not good for Adam to be alone (Gen. 2:18). For a man to remain alone is for him to be just half. He needs another half. To get married is to gain a complement, a counterpart.
The relationship of Eve with Adam is a picture showing the relationship that the church has with Christ. The church is not something organized, but something that comes out of Christ and grows into His counterpart with His likeness. Paul received the revelation of the church as the Body of Christ. The Body is organic, not lifeless. Christianity in its degradation has made the church a lifeless organization instead of an organism. In human society there are different kinds of organizations or clubs, but the church is not like that. Apparently, the church is merely a kind of gathering, but actually the church is something born of God, with Christ, and through Christ to become Christ’s Body, His organism to express His very being.
A man’s body is his fullness for his expression. Christ is the Head of His Body and the Body is the Head’s fullness for His expression. Because our physical body is organic, we have to care for it in an organic way. If a wooden stand has been damaged, I may fix it with glue or with nails and a hammer. But when my finger is cut, I cannot care for it in this way. If I keep the cut on my finger clean and protected, it will be healed by the life in my body causing the growth. The cut on my finger is healed by the growth of my body. This is organic. Only something with life can grow.
Because we are organic, whatever we eat must also be organic. When we eat organic food, it is digested and assimilated organically to become the very element in our blood. Eventually it becomes the very cells and tissues of our body. This is an illustration of what it means to be organic. To be organic means to have life, and life moves, grows, begets, and develops. The church, composed of God’s chosen and redeemed people, is not something organized by God but something begotten by God with His life to make this entity full of life.
Our organic, physical body will not assimilate inorganic things. We human beings have been built up by eating. What we eat must be organic. Whenever we take in organic food, it works together with our organic body to build up our body. This is a good illustration of how the church can be built up. The church cannot be built up by adding something inorganic to it or by organizing it. The organic building up of the Body of Christ is altogether by the growth in life. Because the Body of Christ is an organism, its building up should be organic. In Paul’s Epistles there are four particular books dealing with the building up of the Body of Christ—Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, and Colossians. These four books show that the building up of the Body of Christ must be organic because the Body is altogether a matter of life.
We can make an addition to a physical building or house because it is inorganic, but we cannot make an addition to a tree. The tree increases by growing because it is organic. The church should not have inorganic things added to it. The church needs to grow in life. Anything inorganic that is added to the church is false like a false denture that has been added to our own body. A person’s teeth were not added to his body but born into his body to be a part of his body organically. Today we must realize that the church can only be built up in the way of life, the organic way.
The inorganic, organizational way does not work, but whatever is organically begotten of the church or for the church really works. Today in the Lord’s recovery there is the need of the increase, but we should not consider that the increase of the church comes by the way of addition. The increase of the church is for the increase of the Body of Christ in the organic way. In order to have the increase of the Body of Christ accomplished, there are four crucial organic matters which we greatly need: begetting, nourishing, perfecting, and prophesying. In this chapter we will fellowship concerning begetting, nourishing, and perfecting, and in the next chapter we will go on to talk about prophesying.