The Gospel—Salvation in Christ’s Body

The Gospel—Salvation in Christ’s Body

Salvation through the body of Christ—that He did not sin and what He did for us on Calvary is well known. Thereby we receive forgiveness for our sins and are sanctified with His blood. Heb. 13:12.

However, that is not the real gospel. They also had forgiveness of sins in the old covenant. That was not the new thing with which Jesus came. “Behold, I have come—in the volume of the book it is written of Me—to do Your will, O God.” “Sacrifice and offerings . . . You did not desire . . . (which are offered according to the law), then He said, ‘Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.’ He takes away the first that He may establish the second.” Heb. 10:5-9. The gospel is therefore salvation in Christ’s body, so that we are built up to be His body which does the will of God. After we have been sanctified by the blood of Jesus we need to follow the exhortation in Hebrews 13:13: “Therefore, let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.” He was crucified outside the camp and despised by man. By being crucified with Him, we cease to live for ourselves so that He can live in us. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Gal. 2:20. This is salvation in the body of Christ, the “gospel of God.” Rom. 1:1-4.

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of division between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” Eph. 2:13-18.

Here we read about salvation in the body of Christ by being crucified with Him so that the flesh has to die and Christ’s life can be revealed in our mortal flesh. 2 Cor. 4:11. Jesus brought about this salvation through obedience in the days of His flesh. We can obtain this salvation through that same obedience, the same cross, the same sufferings, and the same death. Heb. 5:7-9. It is written that Jesus made Himself of no reputation, and taking on Himself the form of a servant and coming in the likeness of men, He humbled Himself. Phil. 2:5-9. This is the mystery of godliness. 1 Tim. 3:16. We are baptized by one Spirit to be one body—whether we are Jews or Gentiles. 1 Cor. 12:13. This was the Spirit in which Jesus offered Himself and whom He sent to earth on the day of Pentecost. Heb. 9:14. We also obtain this salvation in the body of Christ, which Jesus has made possible for us, by walking in the same obedience in which Jesus walked. All those who go this way become “one new man.” Just imagine the salvation, the fellowship of the Spirit! This is the gospel! Paul’s work as an apostle was to establish the obedience of the faith among the Gentiles. Rom. 1:5.

Moses received the gospel for Israel that they were to conquer the land God had promised to Abraham. However, to have a share in that gospel, they had to leave Egypt and be willing to be obediently led to the Promised Land. The fact that they were to be freed from bondage in Egypt and have their sins forgiven was also a gospel, but it was not the gospel. As we know, they were led right up to the borders of the land. They had come near and had had many glorious experiences on the way and had witnessed many miracles, but that was not the gospel Moses had brought them. Now they had come near, but they could not have a share in the gospel because of their unbelief. They did not want to believe. Heb. 3:17-19. They did not have the faith to fight. They were afraid to suffer; they were not obedient. They had to go out into the desert again. They received the forgiveness for their sins, but they did not partake of the gospel! There was neither growth nor rest in the desert. There they were bitten by serpents, but they were given a bronze serpent for their healing if they looked up to it. Num. 14, 21:6-9. They had experienced salvation from Egypt and salvation in the desert, but they did not come to experience salvation in the land to a new life because of unbelief and disobedience. They would have entered in if God had sent a plague over the land with the result that all the inhabitants would have died when the spies came. Then they would have praised God that He had done everything and that they did not have to do anything.

These things were written for our instruction. 1 Cor. 10. This is exactly the same way in which believers usually react in our days. They want to have forgiveness for their sins without works which God brought about for them through Jesus, and they praise God for that. Eph. 2:8-9. They have the experience of leaving the world and having their sins forgiven, but they do not want to fight the good fight of faith. Then they shout: We must not do anything! He has done everything! At the same time they believe they are the church—the body of Christ—but still they must not do anything. This is how deceived they are because they do not want to believe. That is why they do not partake of the gospel—victory over sin, being transformed into “one new man,” fellowship in the Spirit. They have come near, but they do not partake of salvation in the body of Christ. Their Christian life is nothing but a wandering in the desert marked by defeat and complaining, where they look up to Jesus as the bronze serpent in the desert for the forgiveness of their sins, and they are along in stoning those who have faith to put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit as those who want to be saved by their own works. It is amazing how the example from the Old Testament has repeated itself throughout all these years. They do not know Christ Jesus as Lord or High Priest; they know Him only as a sin offering. Col. 2:6; Heb. 7:19-25.

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matt. 28:18-20. Jesus also explains what it means to be His disciple: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” “So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:26-27, 33. Being a disciple means to be conformed to His image. Rom. 8:29. Forsaking everything means that we, as Jesus’ disciples, are here only to do His will. Then He lives in us. If we are to belong to Him, then our flesh with its passions and desires has to be crucified. Gal. 5:24. That means that I hate my own life according to the flesh—the life that Jesus, in the days of His flesh, put to death in order to do His Father’s will. Because it was the same flesh, Paul was able to write: “Because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” 2 Cor. 5:14-15. And: “Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, even to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.” Rom. 7:4. Here we can see the work that went on in the body of Christ; and this is reckoned to us if we are in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Rom. 8:1-4, 9.

The new and living way which Jesus consecrated for us went through the flesh in which dwells nothing good. If we, therefore, hate our own life according to the flesh and are led by the Spirit, we walk on this new and living way and partake of salvation in the body of Christ. Just as it took time for Israel to overcome the enemies in the land, so it also takes time for us to bring everything that is human into death and partake of divine nature. 2 Pet. 1:3-4. When Israel entered the land all the enemies were reckoned as having been overcome, and they went from victory to victory as long as they were faithful and obedient. The battles they had to fight were trials of their faith. However, if they stopped hating those whom they were supposed to kill, they were no longer reckoned as being dead to them. This is also the case with us. If we—as disciples—no longer hate our own life, the work of Christ is no longer reckoned to us. We must have this hatred in order to be disciples, and to walk on the new and living way. If we keep this hatred, we serve in the newness of the Spirit; sin in the flesh is put to death, and the life of Christ is manifested in our body. Rom. 7:6.

All of us are built up in the Spirit through this ministry of the newness of the Spirit to be one new man, the body of Christ, with Christ as the Head. This is not a work of man but a work of the Spirit. Rom. 8:12-14. God be praised for the gospel—salvation in the body of Christ.