Concerning the Members’ Faith

Concerning the Members’ Faith

The faith of Jesus Christ is the condition for church life—life in the body and for the growth of the body—the faith that God will mold us, together with the others, according to the image of Christ.

Since it is faith alone that can bring this about, and since it is stronger than other forces, the natural goodness of the various ones is without any critical importance. Therefore I can without hesitation acknowledge that I am the most wretched member of the body—whether I have been a drunkard or a fornicator, irresponsible, a superficial joker, a really stiff-necked and stubborn person, or someone with ingrained character weaknesses who is a fumbler and indecisive. God’s exceedingly abundant riches of grace and goodness are, through His wisdom, mighty to produce divine nature in place of the corrupted human nature. However, this takes place only little by little, and only through faith and patience.

It is a fact that most believers who believe in the forgiveness of their sins through Jesus Christ don’t believe in the church—the body.

They say they do, but they don’t even know what they are talking about. And because they do not believe it, it cannot be realized in their lives either.

Such people leave this world without having known any more than the surface of God’s goodness and wisdom, without having known more than what has been reported to them.

The solid foundation for believing in the members’ reciprocal relationship and growth is a thorough understanding of the fact that nothing good dwells in man. It is not so difficult to keep one’s faith in the body’s growth if you are conscious of this. Many people who have rejoiced in this high and holy faith, have lost it because they have partly put their trust in the flesh and have been disappointed, which is only right and reasonable.

The person, whose hope is united with the faith of Christ and patience, is never disappointed. There is nothing under the sun that can disappoint him! Because he expected only folly from man—which is all he will find—and because in the midst of this he expected to see God’s wisdom and goodness, he will see more and more of it without interruption. So it goes the way he expects it to go, which is why he is not disappointed!

Those who are baptized into Christ are baptized into His death. For an individual to devote himself fully and without reservation to God requires a death over himself, which produces an abundance of blessings. Nevertheless, the depth and fullness of sufferings, death, and eternal glory will only become evident through the members’ mutual relationship to each other according to the laws of Christ by serving each other and bearing one another’s burdens.

So it is not like this that the greatest part of salvation is to be blessed by God in your own room, but that the various ill-tempered, self-loving, and self-willed people can grow the growth of the body together in all things up to Him who is the Head!

Precisely because this is the greatest contrast to evil, and therefore the most difficult, the fulfillment of it will constitute the greatest glory in the hearts. Those who do not bear the others’ burdens are nothing, and the greatness of those who bear them is in relation to what they bear. Gal. 6.