The universal church is the unique Body of Christ. According to Ephesians 1:22-23, Christ is the Head and the church is His Body. Christ the Head has only one Body (Eph. 4:4). It is abnormal for a head to have more than one body. If you saw a person with one head and two bodies, surely you would consider him a monster. In Christianity today, the unique Body of Christ has been divided into countless “bodies.” These bodies are the many so-called churches in existence around the globe. All the different “churches” claim that their Head is Christ. This means that the one Head, Christ, has many bodies. This is not only wrong, but this is grotesque! In the midst of today’s abnormal situation, we strongly affirm that the Body of Christ is uniquely one. There is one Head and one Body. Surely this one Body cannot be a particular local church. This one Body must be the universal church, the church as a whole. Christ as the Head is unique, and the universal church as the Body is also unique.
This one universal church, one Body, comprises all the local churches. There may be thousands of local churches, but together they constitute one universal church. Each local church is only a part of the universal church. The universal church is the unique Body of Christ, and all the local churches are simply the local expressions of that one Body.
The local churches all comprise the one universal church. Acts 15:41 speaks of the churches in Syria and Cilicia, and Romans 16:4 mentions the churches in the Gentile world. Second Corinthians 8:1 speaks of the churches in the province of Macedonia; Galatians 1:2, of the churches in the province of Galatia; and Revelation 1:4, of the churches in the province of Asia. According to Revelation 1:4, there were at least seven local churches in the one province of Asia. In the New Testament we can see many local churches, and together these local churches are considered as one universal church. Today in the Lord’s recovery there are nearly six hundred local churches on six continents. All these local churches together are just one universal church.
The believers are living in the local churches. Actually, we cannot live directly in the universal church. It is impossible for us to live in the universal church without living in a local church. The Lord is building up the universal church, and each of us is living practically in a local church. In Matthew 18:17 the Lord said that if, as a believer, you have a problem with another believer, you should tell it to the church. Surely the church mentioned in this verse is not the universal church; it must be the church in the place where you are. If you are in Seoul and you have any problem, you should tell the problem to the church in Seoul. If you are in Pusan, you should go to the church in Pusan; if you are in Hong Kong, you should go to the church in Hong Kong; and if you are in New York, you should go to the church in New York. The church to which you should tell your problem is the local church.
The local churches are the local expressions of the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 2:22). There is only one Body, but there are many expressions. Universally, all the churches are one Body, and locally, every local church is a local expression of that universal Body. A local church is not the Body; it is only a part of the Body. It is a local expression of the Body. The church in Seoul is not the entire Body; it is a part of the entire Body as the Body’s local expression.