Calvary Road Baptist Church
“THE BODY OF CHRIST:
Metaphor Not Myth” Part 2
One of the challenges we face in interpreting a passage in the Bible is called eisegesis. Exegesis is lifting the proper meaning of a passage during the course of study, but eisegesis is the imposition of a sense on a text, taking it to mean what it does not mean.[1] Exegesis is good, and eisegesis is not good, though it inadvertently occurs all too frequently.
Let me illustrate eisegesis with one passage and two frequently misconstrued terms before we proceed to chapter 2 of “THE BODY OF CHRIST: Metaphor Not Myth” by Charles L. Hunt.
The passage I would like you to turn to is Ephesians 2.8, where it is most commonly assumed that Paul refers to salvation as the gift of God in the verse. The problem lies in the fact that salvation most certainly is the gift of God, though that is not what the Apostle Paul asserts in Ephesians 2.8.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God,”
is rather easily interpreted by examining the two halves of the verse. The first half contains three key terms: “grace,” “are saved,” and “faith,” and the second half makes the negative and positive assertions, “and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Something in the first half of the verse is declared by Paul in the second half of the verse, “that not of yourselves” and “it is the gift of God.” Let’s break this down into two considerations:
Whatever it is, it is the gift of God. Whatever it is, Paul also uses the demonstrative pronoun translated “that” to identify it. The term “that” translates the Greek word toῦto, described in the BDAG Greek lexicon as “the person or thing comparatively near at hand in the discourse material.”[2]
Since pronouns are used to modify only nouns and not verbs,[3] we can eliminate the term “are saved” in the first half of the verse since it is a verb. While it is true that salvation is a gift from God, that is not what Paul declares in Ephesians 2.8. Thus, we are left with two nouns that Paul might be referring to as the gift of God.
Here is where the kind of demonstrative pronoun used by Paul is significant. The demonstrative pronoun Paul uses refers to that which is comparatively near at hand as opposed to relatively remote. Meaning? This means that in this verse, Paul is not asserting grace as a gift of God, but that faith is a gift of God.
Thus, one example of eisegesis illustrates what Charles L. Hunt’s book asserts to be so often the case with the body of Christ metaphor. The words “world” and “all” in the New Testament are two other illustrations in passing. The Greek kόsmos is translated by our English “world.” The problems arise when Bible readers fail to recognize the seven different ways in which the word is used (which are universe, earth, evil world system, human race, humanity minus believers, Gentiles in contrast to Jews, or believers only).[4]
Finally, the word “all” is sometimes not used for every single one but for every different kind or many different ones. I will leave it to you to verify what I assert with your Bible app. The point that I have sought to make, and think I have made, is that eisegesis is a more frequently recurring problem than many might initially imagine, especially regarding the body of Christ metaphor.
Last time we dealt with chapter 1 of Hunt’s book, THE POPULAR BUT INCORRECT VIEW OF THE HEAD-BODY METAPHOR. Turn now to Chapter 2, THE CORRECT VIEW.
Chapter Two
THE CORRECT VIEW
Introduction
Historian Melanie Starks Kierstead writes, accurately, in my opinion, “The concept of the church as the body of Christ dominates our Christian thinking about the church today, almost to the exclusion of other symbols. Cole suggests that perhaps the Ecumenical Movement more than anything else has influenced this concentration.” Perhaps as the Ecumenical Movement fails, more will continue to reevaluate the biblical integrity of the popular but incorrect view of head-body metaphor. Although my conclusions concerning this subject were, for the most part, the result of independent study, it was realized later that a good number of Christian scholars had already reached the same conclusion. The following quotes acknowledge that others, like myself, have noticed the same problems.
Edmond P. Clowney, was an American theologian, educator, and Presbyterian pastor, 1917–2005, who graduated from Wheaton College, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Yale Divinity School.
Clowney sees the vanity of arguing for an organic union in the head-body metaphor and argues convincingly for the correct view:
Paul uses the term ‘head’ (kefάlh Hebrew rosh) to describe the supremacy of Christ over all things and all ages (Eph. l:22; Col. 2:10). His usage is shaped from the O.T. in Greek, where (ἀrche) is associated with (kefάle) in translating the Hebrew rosh. The ‘head’ has primacy, origination, honour, authority, summation. Here usage has so faded the original metaphor that there is no necessary implication whatever that the head stands in any organic connection with the body. Christ is head of all powers in heaven and earth as well as head of the church (Col. 2:10; 1:18). Neither the universe nor the powers are thought of as the body of Christ. Even when Christ as ‘head’ is brought in close connection with the body the independence of the metaphor remains. When Paul describes the members of the body of Christ, he does not hesitate to use the eye and the ear as sample members of the body. If he thought in composite terms, of Christ as the head and the body as the torso, he would not have chosen parts of the head to illustrate members of the body. Efforts to explain the physiology of Paul’s supposed composite metaphor in Eph. 4:11-16 have been in vain. How does the body grow up into the head? How is the body framed and knit together by the head? The point is that Paul’s image of the church as a body is the image of a whole body, head included, a new man in Christ. Christ is the head over the whole body as the husband is the head over the wife (cf. I Cor. 11:3; Eph. 5:23). Only by keeping the metaphors distinct can they be properly understood. Paul does not conceive of Christ the head of the church after the fashion of the Head” in C. S. Lewis’s novel, That Hideous Strength! This book is about the full depth of man’s corruption and what it will take to overcome the fallen nature of man.
Gosnell L. O. R. Yorke, born in 1953, is Associate Professor of Religion at Atlantic Union College, South Lancaster, Massachusetts.
Gosnell L. O. R. Yorke, commenting on Ephesians, shows the utter breakdown of the organic union theory of the metaphor Figure 1 by applying it to husbands and wives:
In Ephesians 5:21-33, the analogy is drawn between the Christ-church relationship and that between husbands and wives. Both Christ and husbands are considered heads; the former vis-à-vis the church and the latter, their wives (vv. 23-30). Quite reminiscent of l Cor. 11:2-16, kefale here cannot be taken physiologically since obviously, Paul is not suggesting that wives are without heads and that husbands are without bodies (cf. vv. 28f.); or that Christ is an ansomatic bodyless kefάle and the church an acephalous headless soma with both in need of each other in some anatomical sense. Rather, the apostle is using kefάle in the passage to underscore the place of primacy that Christ occupies vis-à-vis the church, His soma, as well as that which presumably, husbands occupy vis-à-vis their wives.
Herman Ridderbos, 1909–2007, was an important Dutch theologian and biblical scholar.
Ridderbos, after presenting the organic conception of the relationship of Christ as Head of the church, makes this comment:
Closer examination, however, enables one to realize quickly the untenable nature of this explanation. First of all, the representation of a body nourished from the head and growing up toward the head, as one would then have to take Ephesians 4:15, 16 and Colossians 2:19, is physiologically difficult to imagine, and was certainly not current in antiquity. For that matter Paul does not formulate: “the Head, from which,” but “the Head, from whom,” that is, from Christ (Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:15). More importantly, however, from Paul’s own terminology clearly another idea emerges than that of such a composite metaphor. For the church is continually represented as the whole body (in Eph. 4:16 as well), and not merely as the remaining parts of the body belonging to the head, which the idea of a trunk would then imply. In I Corinthians 12:16 the functions of the head are likewise compared with those of the church (and not with those of Christ). And what entirely settles the matter is this: Christ cannot be thought of as a (subordinate) part of his own body, which is involved in the process of growth toward adulthood and which as part of the body must itself consequently be “in Christ.” Even from these “organic” texts themselves it is evident that one arrives at all kinds of absurdities when one chooses to take “body” and “head” as one, composite metaphor. This is still more clearly the case when one takes into consideration the application of the head-body relationship to the marriage relationship, as this occurs in Ephesians 5:23ff. There the husband is called the head (of the wife) and the wife the body (of the husband) (cf. vv. 23, 28). But it is unwarranted and absurd so to conceive of this as though the wife constituted the trunk of this unity of the two and the husband the head.
There are, no doubt, many others who have correctly understood the head-body metaphor, but these are sufficient to show that the view proposed in his paper is not some novel position held only by a small group of independent Baptists.
The Real Problem
The problem with the organic interpretation of the head-body metaphor is not the glorious teaching of the believer’s union to Jesus Christ that is associated with it. For in this truth all Christians rejoice. The problem is simply that the metaphor under consideration does not teach the believer’s union to Christ. At best, it is a poor representation of the organic and vital union believers have to Jesus Christ, and at worst, it causes serious distortions of the truth it supposedly portrays.
Salvational Metaphors
The Bible uses many metaphors to depict the believer’s salvational union with Christ. In these, Jesus is not only portrayed as the life-sustaining source but as possessing within Himself the fullness of life independent of anyone or anything. For example, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Cut the branches off the vine and the vine continues to grow and sprout new branches. Jesus is the bread of life that came down from Heaven. We will stay dead in our sins if we do not become united to the Bread of Life by partaking of Him through the assimilation of regenerating faith. Jesus Himself is pictured as one in whose hand bread multiplies. He is eternal life independent of anything or anyone. Jesus is the water of life and we must drink of Him, but He Himself is pictured as a well incessantly springing up the waters of life.
The Olive Tree Metaphor
The salvation of God in Christ is pictured in Romans chapter eleven as an olive tree. This metaphor is most interesting because it not only supports the point of salvational metaphors not displaying Christ as having a dependency in the relationship, but it actually gives exhortation against the pride of one who would think in such a way. Romans 11:17-18 says:
“And if some of the branches be broken off,
and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them,
and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast,
thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.”
When a Gentile is grafted into this tree what is the first blessing he partakes of? Is it not the salvation of his soul by receiving the life and fatness of the root? Verse 18 speaks concerning this metaphor in a way of exhortation not to boast because life flows from the root to the branch not the branch to the root. Break the branches off and the root will sprout new ones because the source of life is in the root.
The weakness of the head-body metaphor with its organic union forming one composite body is clearly seen at this point. The head, who is Jesus Christ, can not say I bear you believers with any more strength than the body can say to Christ that we bear Him. The head-body composite metaphor is flawed and leads to a wrong interpretation which makes itself susceptible to the most arrogant boasting. Romans chapter eleven confirms that God is concerned about prideful boasting and reminds them clearly from whom they receive life. To picture our union with Jesus Christ organically in a head-body metaphor seriously denigrates Christ.
An Example
Throughout our study key passages will be examined to show the utter untenableness of the organic head-body view of this metaphor, but for the sake of an example consider the following passage:
“Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands,
as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife,
even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour
of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so
let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”
(Eph. 5:22-24)
Verse 22 states that the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, and He is the Saviour of the body. Here a comparison is set up. If one wants to know what is meant by the head-body metaphor when it speaks of Jesus Christ as head of the body (the church), one needs only to consider the analogy of this passage. Surely the Pauline head-body metaphor has nothing to do with a composite head-body union or relationship. Are we to think of the husband as a trunkless head and the wife as a headless trunk or a non-person? Reflecting now on our two diagrams presented earlier, which analogy best fits the picture here, Figure 1 or Figure 2?
Is the husband the head of the wife as part of a single body as in Figure 1 or is the husband a complete body who is head over the wife? Clearly Figure 2 depicts the biblical and correct view.
A Functional Union
The husband-wife union, therefore, depicted in Ephesians 5.22-24 is not a salvational union but a sanctifying, maturing, and developing oneness that is best described as a functional union. The head is a complete body or person, just as a husband would be viewed, lovingly exercising headship over a complete body or person, just as a wife would be viewed. The husband nourishes and cherishes his wife, just as a complete Christ nourishes and cherishes the church (His body). Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the body just as that body depicted in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, with a head no different in significance than the feet, both being necessary to constitute the body of Christ at Corinth.
The Organic View of the Head-Body Metaphor Causes us
to Misunderstand Other Bible Passages
Not only does the organic view of the head-body metaphor destroy the doctrine of our union to Jesus Christ, but interpreting it in this way causes us to miss other truths within the passages where it is found. For example,
“For we are members of his body, of his flesh,
and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and
mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one
flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning
Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:30-32)
These verses are often looked upon as revealing a mystical union in salvation to Jesus Christ. If the view proposed in this volume is correct, the passage yields a different meaning that pertains to a functional relationship just as would be experienced in a husband-wife relationship within the union of marriage.
The term “great mystery” does not mean that no one can ever begin to understand it in a practical way, as those who make this a mystical salvational union would lead us to believe. There is, of course, a depth to this mystery that will only be realized when we are in glory, but the predominant meaning of the word mystery is something that can only be known via the revelation of God, and the revelation needed to begin understanding this mystery is given right in the text much like the mystery of the rapture in 1 Corinthians 15:51 is revealed in its text. But because this text is approached as picturing a salvational union through the influence of the composite head-body metaphor, the reality of it picturing a union brought about by sanctification is overlooked. Years ago my former pastor, William Younger, gave me one bit of advice that has helped me tremendously. He said, “Chuck, always separate ecclesiology and soteriology and you’ll go in the right direction toward understanding the biblical teaching of the church.” If we approach this text realizing that the subject is ecclesiology and not soteriology and that this metaphor is depicting a functional relationship between those already saved and their Lord (as a husband and his bride), then verses 30-31 immediately reveal their true meaning.
The Head-Body Metaphor and Marriage
God designed marriage in such a way that the husband and wife separate themselves from family, friends, and associations so they can grow in their relationship of oneness. This natural bonding process separates the husband and wife from former relationships, obligations, and priorities to a new developing relationship of oneness. The need for this oneness is seen in Jesus, while upon earth, separating Himself from the multitudes while calling a people unto Himself and forming an assembly. This assembly coming out of the world is expressive of the bonding power that marriage brings. New converts will leave father, mother, houses, lands, etc., to join themselves to an assembly of Jesus Christ. Here they develop in that relationship of oneness to Jesus Christ only as they fulfill their part in the body in which they were placed by the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
Church Membership Sets Us Apart
This biblical revelation explains why a new convert will leave so much to take his place in a body of Christ so he can experience the sanctifying life of the body as it grows in oneness to Jesus Christ. Indeed the greatest aspect of this mystery involves that which Jesus Christ forsook to become incarnate to redeem a people with whom He could assemble together in an organized relationship depicted metaphorically as a body and through them manifest His spiritual gifts and likeness. In Heaven He will visibly dwell with the grand assembly through whom throughout all eternity He will manifest His likeness and glory.
First Corinthians 12:18 helps us understand this truth: “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.” This action is by the work of the Holy Spirit as verse 13 explains, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.” The Holy Spirit leads those who are saved to a particular assembly to be baptized in water and become a functioning member of a body of Christ. So in salvation we are regenerated, gifted, and designed as a particular member of a body fashioned by God’s design, but we do not fulfill that purpose until we leave the world and join a body of Christ.
There is no universal, invisible body that we instantly become a member of at the moment of salvation. This whole doctrine finds its strength in a misunderstanding of the head-body metaphor. It is when they are confronted with this truth that many professing Christians experience cognitive dissonance, with many choosing the familiar over what is true. The correct understanding of the metaphor is not organic and vital but relational and functional. It is not depicting our salvational union of being placed in Christ, but it is depicting a corporate functional union of believers set by God in a metaphorical body which is an organized assembly of believers — His church. There is as much difference between being in Christ and being in the body of Christ as there is between the Son of God and the Son of God incarnate who upon earth was local and visible and still is as the Lord in Heaven. We will discuss this distinction later. Being in Christ refers to salvation, and being in the body of Christ refers to a work of sanctification wherein a divinely organized assembly of believers corporately exercises and displays the diverse gifts of Christ in the unity created by the Holy Spirit.
Summary
The composite head-body metaphor is a myth that needs to be separated from the real metaphor of a complete body (His church) over which Jesus Christ presides as head. Each true New Testament church is a body which is His by possession and relationship and to which He is the Head.
In this chapter the author presents jarring truth, which many if not most choose to not adequately deal with. This is unfortunate, to say the least. The truth of a passage’s meaning, or a metaphor’s, is not determined by the opinions of the majority who hold to an erroneous view that violates the proper use of figures of speech.
Our conviction is that the Word of God is to be scrutinized using the grammatical-historical approach of determining what was meant by what was written at the time of its writing. Our author has accomplished this purpose.
Chapter 3 will be our focus next time, “IN CHRIST BY SALVATION: AN EXAMINATION OF ‘IN CHRIST.’”
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[1] Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzki & Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), page 49.
[2] Bauer, Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), page 214.
[3] Albert H. Marckwardt & Frederic G. Cassidy, Scribner Handbook Of English, Fourth Edition, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967), page 203.
[4] kόsmos = universe as a whole, Acts 17.24
kόsmos = earth, John 13.1; Ephesians 1.4
kόsmos = evil world system, Matthew 4.8; John 12.31; First John 5.19
kόsmos = human race, Romans 3.19
kόsmos = humanity minus believers, John 15.18; Romans 3.6
kόsmos = Gentiles in contrast to Jews, Romans 11.12
kόsmos = believers only, John 1.29; 6.33; 12.47; First Corinthians 4.9; Second Corinthians 5.19
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