The "ONE BODY"

"By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body."—I Corinthians 12: 13.
WE may talk easily and freely in a doctrinal way about this "one body," even boasting that we are gathered on the ground of it, and yet may have no realization of this spiritual order of God's people at all.  It is one order and constitution, and in one Spirit includes all who have that one Spirit.  It is a very great comfort, guard and guide, to be able in any measure to view all God's people in the light of this.
All outward order in every gathering of those who compose this body, must be in accord with this spiritual constitution of God's people, or it will leave room for man and the flesh.  This body is for the expression of Christ, according to that expression of Himself which He gave in His death.
There is no room for selfishness in any way here.  It is an order of things in which each one has the same care for another that the other has for him.  The feeble members are most needed as furnishing occasion for the outflow of those affections expressed in the death of Christ.
These affections so delight in covering the uncomely with comeliness, that they are even more abundantly comely under the influence and under the effect of these spiritual affections.
It is wonderful wisdom on the part of God that He should so have constituted His people in Christianity that man and self can have no place without some violation of the constitution.  J. D.
"Words of Truth" 1943