Unity in the Body

Satan views causing strife among the various members of the body as a matter of exceedingly great importance. His supreme goal is to destroy the body of Christ. Therefore each member has to offer himself and present himself to serve God and one another. Then all of Satan’s designs will be repelled, because what he is tempting them with has already been offered up in each individual member.

In 1 Corinthians 4:6, Paul exhorts us not to be puffed up on behalf of one against the other, because the members cannot stay together with such things in their hearts. Each member must faithfully and without guile reckon himself dead indeed to what he has already of­fered so that these cancerous things do not enter the body.

There must be perfect harmony between all the members in the church, just as there is between the members of a natural body. The hand must not reproach the eye for not seeing as the hand wants it to see, but the eye can correct the hand and show it what could be wrong. When the foot thinks that the hearing of the ear is not good enough, the harmony in the body has disappeared. This is a breach of the law that makes it possible for unity to exist; namely, the law of life whereby we see ourselves as the most lowly among the saints.

All this begins in the hidden; therefore we must always think so­berly and not nourish a single thought that we are “somebody” in comparison to the others. The humble receive grace, with the result that they are preserved from being puffed up by conceit, and from becoming dispirited and withdrawn.