Paul’s Body Politic: Striving for Individualistic Unity

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. – Ephesians 4:11-16

The concept of the body politic, or the corps-etat, is often said to have found its origin sometime in the fifteenth century. The concept itself is a metaphor in which the state is compared to a body; the head of the body is the governmental powers, and the various components of its remaining anatomy are found in the society over which that governmental power rules. Thus when political conservatives in the U.S. such as yours truly argue that small businesses comprise the “backbone” of a capitalistic economy, said conservatives are appealing to the concept of the body politic when making such claims.

While the term “body politic” itself might have been first used during the Renaissance era, the concept of the body politic is in fact much older. The above biblical passage is one of several in which the Apostle Paul explicitly compares the church to the body of Christ, and in doing so employs the body politic metaphor as a means of teaching ecclesiological doctrine.

In this particular case, Paul’s words concerning the nature and function of the church come to us from a discourse on the need for unity among the chosen people of God. The tenor of the letter as a whole (which was circulatory in nature, and thus not necessarily addressed to any one particular church) seems to suggest that the sitz im leben from which the letter was written was one of general disunity concerning the relationship between Jewish Christians and Gentile ones. As a result, the Apostle Paul writes largely concerning the unity of the church under its head; that is, Christ.

Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Here we see Paul seeking to answer the rhetorical question he posed to the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 1:13. “Has Christ been divided?” Paul’s answer is an emphatic “no.” To the contrary, as there is one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, so the church ought to strive to be one body.

But, wait a moment: in the midst of this appeal for ecclesiological unity, the Apostle Paul seems also to stress the importance of individualism within the church. In verse 16 he writes

…from whom the whole body, being fitted together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

A couple of years ago I set for myself a personal fitness goal concerning pull ups; my goal was to actually be able to do one. For several weeks I struggled, never capable of doing more than two or three at a time, until a kindly stranger at the gym offered me some advice consisting of two simple words: “look up.” He further divulged to me that, in his time in the military, he learned that looking up toward the bar while doing a pull up helped the many smaller muscles in your shoulders and back to become engaged at once. The key, he said, was to distribute the work evenly among many muscles rather than forcing the bulk of it on only a few. Within a few months of employing his advice, I found that I had effectively tripled the number of pull ups I was able to do at one time.

In the same way, when the Apostle Paul refers to the church functioning as a body,  he does not suggest that each individual component share in that responsibility; rather, he assumes it. Unlike in 1 Corinthians 12, in which Paul refers to members of the body making up different parts according to their spiritual gifts, Paul is not talking about individual giftedness, but individual responsibility.

And thus our takeaway from this seemingly-difficult passage is rather simple: if you are a member of the body of Christ, you ought not lose your sense of individual responsibility in light of the unity of the church. The church may be unified in nature and in purpose, but that fact does not give anyone within the body a free pass to sit back and relax. Rather, the words of the Apostle Paul to us suggest that it is only “according to the proper working of each individual part” that Christ will grow the body in love.

Pragmatically, this means that in our personal study of the Word, in our evangelism, in our servitude, each of us ought to strive as if the health of the body of Christ depended on it, because it does. Much like I could not expect to do more than a couple of pull ups using only my shoulders and arms, the church cannot expect to experience real, authentic growth if only a few of the members are doing all of the work. Hold one another accountable, teach one another, rebuke one another, carry one another, seek to understand one another, love one another, because it is only by the commitment of individuals that the body will truly be unified.