What is the "Body of Christ?"

There are two primary meanings when it comes to the question of what is the “body of Christ.”

First, the “body of Christ” literally refers to the physical body of Jesus. Jesus had a human body like yours and mine. Romans 7:4 says, “So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.” This means that through the physical body of Christ and his death on the cross, we were somehow, amazingly, not held accountable for our sins but were given a second chance or a new life to live. This is what it means to have a relationship with God. Jesus referred to this new life as a second birth from above (John 3:3).

This is one of the most amazing facts of Christianity: that God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). And the life He lived was in a human body. Jesus was no ghost or phantom. He had a physical body that felt pain as well as all the emotional aspects of a human. So the “body of Christ” refers to the actual body of Christ.

But the “body of Christ” also refers to believers or followers of Jesus throughout all times. I Corinthians 12:27 says, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” The Apostle Paul, who wrote I Corinthians, says that believers make up the body of Christ. He used many different images to describe what believers are. In Ephesians 2:21 Paul used the image of a temple. So this isn’t an image that is all exclusive.

Paul loved describing to new believers who they were and what they were. In the context of the Corinthians passage above, Paul was trying to stress how believers of Jesus should relate to one another. In that same passage above Paul says that some of us are hands, while others are feet. Some were more prominent while others aren’t. The point is that unity is important in any organization and this pertains to believers as well.

But probably the most important part of being part of the ”body of Christ” is that we are part of him. Ultimately, this is a literary device that Paul uses to describe how we are connected to Christ and each other. In fact, when someone thinks of the word “church” they usually think of a building…but it is so much more. The “church” is not the building, but the people who have decided to follow Jesus and who have this second birth that Jesus talked about.

My favorite way of thinking about this is to actually visualize believers as the actual body of Christ. How and through whom does Christ work in the world today? It is through his followers. We are the hands, feet, and heart of Jesus!