Thursday 31 January 2013

Church-community

The church-community is thus able to bear the sins that none of its members can bear alone: it is able to bear more than all of its members combined. As such, it is a spiritual reality that is more than the sum of all the individuals. Not all the individuals, but the church-community as a whole in Christ is the 'body of Christ'; it is Christ existing as church-community. It bears the sins by receiving forgiveness through the word and seeing its sins wiped out on the cross. It is by the word alone, but in doing so it has the Spirit. It is the bearer of the word, its steward and its instrument. It has authority, provided it has faith in the authority of the word; it can take the sins of individuals upon itself, if it builds itself upon the word of the cross, and knows itself reconciled and justified in the cross of Jesus. It has itself died and risen with Christ, and is now the nova creatura (new creation) in Christ. It is not merely a means to an end but also an end in itself. Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio, 190. This is community!

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