Jesus and the Church

[ServingHim]

on another thread, this was said ...

Jesus doesn't live in the church. We live in Him. It is not about us....why try to make it that way? Jesus is everything.  :il:

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. John 15:4

Nothing about a church there! 

My question...is this person right? Does JESUS have NOTHING to do with the Church? Is it ALL ABOUT "Jesus & ME" only? This person said ... we live IN HIM...this I agree, but is this where it stops? This person said it's NOT ABOUT US, YET aren't WE the 'body of Christ'...that is: THE CHURCH?

4 For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Romans 12:4-5

Isn't THIS speaking of THE CHURCH ... NOT just JESUS & ME?!

27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 1 Cor 12:27

Again, we are PART of the BODY, the Church!

24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, Col 1:24

CLEARLY, this speaks of the 'body' AS "THE CHURCH".

I find it odd that I'm the one always being accused of speaking heresy here, but clearly, the person who spoke the above quote is NOT speaking the Truth. Clearly, scripture contradicts what this person has said. Comments?!

[Ovedya]

My comment is simply that the church is much more than a human organization. It is the organism of the Triune God. That may sound like heresy to you too. But I do not view the church in terms of a conglomerate of Christians who have gotten together and said, "This is how we will practice our faith, and these are the rules and regulations to which we will abide. If anyone disagrees with us, he can go to hell." But before you say that I'm talking about the RC, let me point out that I am talking about any and all religions. "The church" is not a human organization. It is an organic organism, much the same way as your physical body is an organism. And that is very Biblical. I think for you to understand other's viewpoint of the church you have to step outside your "box" for a while and try to see it in a different light.

[Guest Called]

I said that and you took what I said completely out of context.

I never denied any of the scripture that you stated.

[Guest Called]

My comment is simply that the church is much more than a human organization. It is the organism of the Triune God. That may sound like heresy to you too. But I do not view the church in terms of a conglomerate of Christians who have gotten together and said, "This is how we will practice our faith, and these are the rules and regulations to which we will abide. If anyone disagrees with us, he can go to hell." But before you say that I'm talking about the RC, let me point out that I am talking about any and all religions. "The church" is not a human organization. It is an organic organism, much the same way as your physical body is an organism. And that is very Biblical. I think for you to understand other's viewpoint of the church you have to step outside your "box" for a while and try to see it in a different light.

I agree!

[ServingHim]

I said that and you took what I said completely out of context.

I never denied any of the scripture that you stated.

I copied and pasted what you said...so please correct me HOW I took it out of context...I'm sorry if you think I did, but I copied and pasted exactly how you said it.

[ServingHim]

"The church" is not a human organization.  It is an organic organism, much the same way as your physical body is an organism.

The CHURCH -- Extension of the Incarnation

The community of the Church is not just a human community like any other, not even like any other religious community, which is the way sociology considers things, i.e., with reason only prescinding completely from the reality of the Divine. If one considers the Church just as an historical phenomenon from that pov, one doesn't even have to be a believer and one will understand nothing important about the Church as it really is.

The reality of the Church is already completely present in cause in the Incarnation. The Divine Word unites humanity to Himself in a qualitative sense and is the True Adam of the human race. He extends this redeemed personal humanity, i.e., extends Himself as Incarnate at Pentecost into the New Creation of the Church objectively infused with His own Divine Trinitarian Life of the Holy Spirit, making it His Mystical Body so as to form one Mystical Person. In this objective infusion of the Holy Spirit, He simultaneously infuses the Holy Spirit into human subjects, but as united with one another, not as isolated individuals. These are the Twelve around the Blessed Mother and about 120 others. This is a visible Communion that is a supernatural organism with a variety of powers and roles, a hierarchic society from the get-go. This body expands by incorporating individuals into the Christ life through Baptism, as the 3,000 converts of Jews that day attests. Later (not even much later) when some individuals lose this infusion of the Holy Spirit through immorality or sins against faith (heresy) the supernatural, objective presence of Christ by the Holy Spirit is not lost thereby. That is because Christ won't let it happen, since He married His Bride supernaturally in the New and Eternal Covenant in His Blood, far surpassing the first covenant with the Jews which was temporary and leading to an indissoluble union between humanity and Himself - in Himself extended.

Thus the Church is that same historically continuous visible communion, the supernatural organism of the Apostolic community with Peter as the head of Christ objectively extended and subjectively present in individuals by the grace of the Holy Spirit. When, therefore, any individual personally departs in his actions and beliefs from Christ (like rejecting the Perpetual Virginity of Christ's Holy Mother, e.g.) such a person is not acting as a member of the Church but on his own, because the Church is none other than God the Son Incarnate extended organically in the Catholic Communion. The objective extensions of Christ into this Body of His He will not withdraw: namely, preservation of Revealed Truth with the gift of infallibility, indefectibility of the Sacraments, hierarchical communion, the reality of sanctity and charity, moral truth, the mission to reach all nations, communion with the Saints in heaven and the souls in Purgatory, the power to sanctify human society.

Now we can not expect a non-Catholic to see things this way, since they don't have the supernatural power of Divine Faith infused into the mind by grace with its laser-like vision that gets to the supernatural reality in the Church, but one can expect Catholics to, especially when this supernatural vision of the Church is explained to them. If then they don't accept this understanding of the Church, it is simply lack of faith, a defect due to their own sinfulness or due to their psychological hang-ups (like emotionalism, rationalism, sensuality, worldliness, pride hidden to themselves, insecurity and inability to trust, immaturity, isolated individualism), faulty education hostile to higher values of the spirit, etc., etc.. The sooner they recognize the fault lies with them the better the chance to remedy their separation from the Christ Mystery and reestablish full communion with It.

No true believer would have difficulty in accepting that Christ has everything in His own Incarnate, victorious Person, and that He is the cause and sharer of His own fulness with His Body which is simply the extension of Himself in both objective and subjective ways, which are always - of course - less in the participator than in Christ Himself. The Church is incorporated into Him. And in such an incorporation He is not changed in an essential way by the incorporation; He is not rewritten so as to be digestible to modern peoples, so that He is incorporated into them.

In sum, it is vital to see that in fallible, sinful humans there is the wisdom and life that comes by grace from Christ while at the same time another (sinful, erroneous, imprudent) "approach" to life that does not, and the part that does not is thus not of the Church's being or activity, which must always mean incorporated and related to Christ; thus when the individual sins, the Church in him does not! Now to the outsider considering by reason alone the Church as a societal phenomenon like any other social group, those without this "knowledge of faith" simply do not see the reality of Christ-Church as supernatural in nature and source and go by appearances and conclude the Church erred, the Church persecuted, etc.. But that is not the Truth. The individual erred, persecuted; the administrators of the Church did such and such not stemming from Christ and so not stemming from the Church. That's how intimate the nature of the reality of the Church is. And the sin and error in individuals and to some degree in social structures of human (not divine) origin inhibit the Church from spreading, manifesting its true nature (as infallibly joined to Christ in a Mystical, i.e., supernatural, Marriage that is indissoluble) and hinder its mission.

"Having spoken of the transposition of vision into faith, and of Christ's time into our time, we have already said some fundamental things about the way the Church issues from, and is set on her way by, him who is the Mediator between heaven and earth. The Church is the prolongation of Christ's mediatorial nature and work and possesses a knowledge that comes by faith; she lives objectively (in her institution and her sacraments) and subjectively (in her saints and, fundamentally, in all her members) in the interchange between heaven and earth. Her life comes from heaven and extends to earth, and extends from earth to heaven," Theodrama Vi, "The Last Act", p. 131, Hans Urs von Balthasar. :il:

[Orr v'emet]

I said that and you took what I said completely out of context. 

I never denied any of the scripture that you stated. 

I copied and pasted what you said...so please correct me HOW I took it out of context...I'm sorry if you think I did, but I copied and pasted exactly how you said it.

Why don't you post a link to the entire thread so we can read for ourselves what Called said in it's originial thread and context instead of quoting two sentences. I suspect you are trying to take some heat off yourself and label other people heretics when all your really doing is twisting what people say.

Also in response to the next post you made...can't we stick to what the Bible says about the church instead of "Theodrama Vi, "The Last Act", p. 131, Hans Urs von Balthasar's" view on it.

[BobTriez]

Why don't you post a link to the entire thread so we can read for ourselves what Called said in it's originial thread and context instead of quoting two sentences.