The Authority Upheld and the Law of the Body

The Authority Upheld

The church is a corporate body having the special characteristic that its members, as long as they live in this world, live in obedience. We take obedience as our principle of daily life.

The church today needs to be brought to the place where she can declare that what God did not obtain at the time of Adam, He now has obtained in her. That which God failed to get from the nation of Israel is today found in the church. What the world—the men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation—does not have, the church does have. In other words, on this huge earth there is at least one group of people which upholds the authority of God. Though the people in this wide, wide world are rebellious, the church is the one body that is obedient to authority. She should be able to lift up her head and say, "Lord, what You did not get from Satan and his rebellious followers, You now have in the church."

Thus, unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places, God’s authority is now made manifest through the church. The church today is not only on the earth to preach the gospel and to build herself up but also to manifest the authority of God. Everywhere else God’s authority is rejected, but here in the church His authority is upheld. People in the world do not seek the will of God, but the church is here seeking His will. In other words, the church is an obedient body. If you are unsaved and therefore not in the church, you are excepted; otherwise, once you come into the church, you must before God uphold this one basic principle of enabling God’s authority to be accomplished in the church. God’s will cannot get through anywhere in the world, but His will should be able to prevail in the church. You and I must uphold God’s authority in the church.

For this reason, the brothers and sisters in the church must all learn to be obedient. Please bear in mind that no sin is more serious than that of disobedience, for it contradicts the very reason for the church’s existence. What mattered with the Lord Jesus on earth was not whether He lived well but whether He was obedient. As a matter The of fact, if the Son had done anything on His own, it could only have been good. But He insisted that He could do nothing by himself, for He did not come to do His own will but to do the will of the Father who sent Him. Remember, there is one authority in the universe that must be upheld, and the Lord did uphold it. Today, may the church do the same.

What God earlier failed to obtain in different dispensations He will obtain in the church. What He has failed to get elsewhere, He will now have in the church. Hence the church is the only place where you can learn the lesson of obedience. In the church, we speak not only of good or bad, right or wrong, but, even more, of obedience. We need to see that there is no testimony more important today than the testimony of obedience. Because the whole universe has fallen into rebellion, God is not able to find any place at all except in the church where men will accept His authority. For this reason, God’s children must learn to obey in the church.

Obedience is the life of the church. It is her very nature and, therefore, her basic principle. She exists for the purpose of upholding obedience She is the precise opposite of the condition of the surrounding nations. While the nations of the earth take counsel together against God and against His anointed, saying, "Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us" (Ps. 2.3), while they struggle to be free of the law of the Son of God, the church declares with joy, "I most gladly put myself under His bonds and His cords in order to learn obedience." This is the church. She becomes not only a body which obeys the direct authority of God but also an organ for the testimony of obedience. She upholds on earth God’s indirect, delegated authority as well as God’s direct authority.

The Law of the Body

The church is the body of Christ. Within the body is an inherent law. Every member has his use, and every member is governed by a strange and mysterious law of function. It is imperative for the members to learn how to be subject to the law of the body. If any member should act independently, out of his own idea, it betrays a sickness. The characteristic of the body is oneness. When that oneness is wrecked, the body most surely is sick.

For this reason, no child of God should violate the law of the body of Christ and act independently. Independent actions always speak of rebellion. Rebellion is expressed by independent action. To act independently is to not be in subjection to the authority of the Head, to the principle of oneness which God has ordained for the body, or to the law of oneness prescribed in the Bible. Independent action is a matter both of disobedience to the Lord and of insubjection to the body. . . .

We are fearful of those who act independently, those who reject the control of the body and follow their own whims, who do not learn to obey the authority of the Head in the body. After we have believed in the Lord, the first spiritual principle we should remember is that the body is God’s ordained authority on earth. The body is an authority. God’s law is in the body and I must not violate it. I cannot follow my own will. I dare not do anything by myself, for if I do, I become as an uncontrollable malignant cell in the body, working for myself and destroying the oneness of the body. I will be a cancer, unable to coordinate with others, totally independent, detrimental to the body. Let us therefore learn to accept the judgment of the body and learn to follow the movement of life in the entire body.

The longer you are before the Lord as a Christian, the more you see that the oneness of the body is a fact. You see that it is a tremendously serious fact and that therefore you must learn not to corrupt it. If you break it, you are lawless, disobedient, and rebellious, and the authority of God is not upon you. As we no doubt realize, authority must be upon each cell, for the cells of the body must work together, not independently. This is most marvelous. How appropriate it is that Scripture uses the body as an illustration of the church. . . .

(Watchman Nee, The Finest of the Wheat, Vol. 1, 132-135)