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BodyInsight on the Scriptures, Volume 1
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Symbolic Usage. Jesus Christ is spoken of as the Head of “the congregation, which is his body.” (Eph 1:22, 23; Col 1:18) This Christian body of people has no divisions racially, nationally, or otherwise, Jews and people of all nations being represented in it. (Ga 3:28; Eph 2:16; 4:4) All are baptized by holy spirit into Christ and into his death. They are, therefore, all baptized into one body. (1Co 12:13) Thus all the body follows the head, dying his kind of death and receiving his kind of resurrection.—Ro 6:3-5; see BAPTISM (Baptism Into Christ Jesus, Into His Death).
The apostle Paul uses the functioning of the human body to illustrate the operation of the Christian congregation, likening the members living on earth at any particular time to a body, with Christ as the invisible Head. (Ro 12:4, 5; 1Co 12) He emphasizes the importance of the place each member occupies, the interdependency, the mutual love and care, and the accomplishment of work. God has set each one in his position in the body, and through the various operations of the holy spirit the body performs what is necessary. The Head, Jesus Christ, as liaison member, supplies the members of the body the things they need through the “joints and ligaments,” the means and arrangements for supplying spiritual nourishment as well as communication and coordination, so that “the body” is spiritually well fed and each part is informed of the task to perform.—Col 2:19; Eph 4:16.
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BodyInsight on the Scriptures, Volume 1
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One who is an anointed member of the Christian congregation, the body of Christ, and who commits fornication is taking a member of the Christ away and making that one a member of a harlot. Any such Christian committing fornication is bringing in moral defilement and is also “sinning against his own [fleshly] body.” He is putting himself in peril of being removed from the body of Christ, the temple organization, and is exposing himself to the danger of loathsome diseases. (1Co 6:13, 15-20; Pr 7:1-27) He may be ‘handed over by the congregation to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.’—1Co 5:5.
One who is a member of the body of Christ, as well as other dedicated persons who are associated with these spiritually begotten body members, must avoid not only physical fornication but also spiritual fornication. The Scriptures call one who has friendship with the world an ‘adulteress.’ (Jas 4:4) Jesus said of his disciples: “They are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world.” (Joh 17:16) Therefore, Jesus is careful that those who make up the members of his body are clean morally and spiritually. (Eph 5:26, 27) They are said to have their “bodies bathed with clean water.” (Heb 10:22) As the apostle Paul says, speaking of husbands: “In this way husbands ought to be loving their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no man ever hated his own flesh; but he feeds and cherishes it, as the Christ also does the congregation, because we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and he will stick to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This sacred secret is great. Now I am speaking with respect to Christ and the congregation.”—Eph 5:28-32.
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