Strange things happen to believers at times like experiencing illnesses that never go away and dying prematurely. While many of such are due to living in a fallen world and the inability to exercise faith, they are at times due to a poor recognition of the Lord’s body. Paul said so in his epistle. Weakness, sickness and premature death were three effects of partaking of the Lord’s table in an unworthy manner (1 Corinthians 11:30). These three effects, however, open us up to the three effects partaking in the right manner should have; namely, strength, health and longevity.

Where the body of Christ is rightly recognised, we walk in love. This love of Christ shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, leads us to serving one another selflessly (Galatians 5:13). It is this type of love, which is a product of the revelation of God’s love for us, that makes our faith effective (Galatians 5:6). It propels us to give and share whatever we have with the body of Christ. It births a sense of equity and covenant in us as we recognise that we are one body with our fellow believers. We also realise we have the same blood of Jesus flowing within us (1 Corinthians 10:16). Out of such a love walk flow’s strength, health and longevity.

Living with an unforgiving spirit, bitterness of soul and envy towards others is a lack of discernment of the body of Christ. Like Paul equated the love of a spouse to the love of self in Ephesians 5:29, so also is the oneness of the body that is taught by him in several portions. We may be many and have different gifts and functions in the body of Christ like the human body, but we belong to one another and are different parts of the same whole (1 Corinthians 12:12-14). Anything done for the body is done for ourselves and whatever is done against the body is against ourselves. Beyond that, we must recognise that in our oneness with Christ, beyond ourselves, whatever we do to the body, we do to the head, for the body and the head are one (Ephesians 1:22-23).

‘So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.’
Romans 12:5 NIV.

Inferable from the text is also the fact that discerning the broken body is recognising it was broken for our healing (Isaiah 53:4-5, 1 Peter 2:24). This revelation and recognition will lead us to a reality of our divine healing and health in Christ. If Christ was punished with death for our salvation, He was punished with stripes for our healing. If we are saved by our faith in His death, so are we by our faith in His stripes also. On the basis of the sacrifice of His body, we can claim strength, healing, and longevity.

Victor Adeyemi