Ephesians 1:22

And he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

It is not merely the fact of Christ's universal, eternal power which Paul affirmed here; the significant thing is that he is the head of that community of men and women on earth called "the church" who are his body, his spiritual body, having an intimate and eternal connection with the all-powerful One who is actually the "head" of that spiritual body. Thus the apostle Paul glorified and elevated the church of Jesus Christ in a manner that staggers the imagination, even yet. People who make little of the church on earth know nothing of what Paul taught. The amazing prepositional phrase "in Christ" that so permeates and dominates his New Testament writings can be nothing at all unless it is the church; and, although the ultimate meaning goes beyond that, for all practical purposes in the present times, it is synonymous with it.

Theologians find it very difficult to accept the implications of Paul's teaching on this subject, Bruce, for example, pointing out that "In those earlier epistles, Christ is not viewed as the head of the body ... Paul compared an individual believer to the head (1 Corinthians 12:21)."[35] However, it was a physical body that Paul used as the basis of comparison in 1 Corinthians 12; and it is a spiritual body of which Paul is speaking here. It is an extra-literal, that is, not literal, body, like that of a legal corporation which is recognized by law in every country on earth as a legal person. That is what is meant by "the body of Christ."

JESUS CHRIST; INCORPORATED

The New English Bible (1961) translated "believers incorporate" (Ephesians 1:1) and "incorporate in Christ" (Ephesians 1:13), thus recognizing that an extra-literal body, called an incorporation, is indeed certainly apparent in the whole chapter; but the New English Bible is profoundly wrong in making it belong to the believers! No! The believers belong to it! Christ, not the believer, is the corporation.

The Pauline conception of the spiritual body of Christ existing as the heavenly device by which mortals may be "in Christ" was not "evolved" or "developed" by Paul as many allege. It appeared in its totality in one dazzling burst of glory on the Damascus road where Paul suddenly learned that all he was doing to the church he was in fact doing to Christ. The Pauline expression "in Christ" makes no sense at all except as a reference to the spiritual body which is the church; and, although Paul used that expression thirty times in Ephesians, he also used it about one hundred forty times elsewhere. It is extensively used in Galatians, the first of his letters, and extensively used in the letters of his last imprisonment. Take this concept out of Paul's writings and absolutely nothing is left:

Christ is the head of this corporation.

The identity of it is Christ, no sinful mortal being able on his own identity to enter it. He must deny himself.

All of the riches of Christ are in this "body."

All of God's righteousness is in it.

Every spiritual blessing is in it. (This is to be understood superlatively to include salvation, eternal life, forgiveness, etc., absolutely all spiritual blessings.)

Those who are in Christ are perfect, not in their merit, but in the merit and righteousness of Christ.

Christ keeps the books on this corporation, laying down rules of entry, terms of membership, and doing the "adding" to it of any who may qualify. All such regulations and information are in the "little book" of Revelation 10, the New Testament.

Like all good corporations, Christ's has a seal, that of the promised gift of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13), promised to all believers upon condition of their repentance and baptism (Acts 2:38,39).

In the New Testament, no other means of coming into this corporation, that is, being "in Christ," is revealed except that which is taught by Paul and Jesus alike, namely, by being "baptized into Christ" (Galatians 3:27; Romans 6:3-5; 1 Corinthians 12:13). For all who insist that they can be "in Christ" by some other action, a reminder is in order, that the corporation is not theirs, but Christ's.

As being in Christ, of Christ, and in the Scriptural sense actually Christ, Christians have already died to sin (that is, paid the penalty of sin) in the body of Christ; they are resurrected with him in the new life "in Christ," "risen with him," even exalted to eternal glory "in him," this latter thing, of course, being potential and not actual now, but sure to be actual later.

This is only a little summary of the immense theological implications of the "spiritual body of Christ"; a little fuller discussion has been included in this series in my Commentary on Romans, chapter 3. One additional thought, as regards justification, the ultimate and final ground upon which God declared people to be righteous and deserving of no punishment: the Pauline doctrine of "salvation in Christ" places the ground of justification totally in Jesus Christ.

Except in the secondary, limited and lower-level use of "justification" to enumerate steps of primary obedience, as when Peter said, "Save yourselves, etc.," nothing that a sinner can either believe or do "saves" him. He is saved, not by himself, but by Christ. When Paul says he is justified "by faith," it is not the sinner's faith, but Christ's which is meant. Paul reiterated the thought four times in the first letter that he ever wrote that people are saved by "the faith of Christ" (see notes on Galatians). In that other, and secondary sense of what saves people, there are surely things that every man must both believe and do if he would enter into life (see discussion of The Law of Christ, under Galatians 6:18).