Alone with Jesus

Since I came to Christ nearly 20 years ago, I have watched professing Christians, one-by-one, leave the church. Some had been abused physically or spiritually. Some expressed dissatisfaction or frustration with the “institutional” church and its all-too-prevalent hypocrisy. Some left the faith outright. Others decided to “go it alone” with Jesus. I am to an extent sympathetic. I, too, have witnessed and experienced abuse in church. I, too, have been dissatisfied and frustrated. Sometimes the siren song of  “Me and Jesus” reaches down to the depths of my soul. 

Of course, I would never suggest that our one-on-one relationships with God shouldn’t be intimate. The Spirit of God can and must reach deep into each of our individual souls to cleanse and transform us. But, despite how much sweeter and simpler the idea of going one-on-one with Christ may seem compared to the rough-and-tumble of church life, if you think you will grow more intimate with Christ apart from the church, you’re kidding yourself. There is no greater intimacy with Christ than to be intimately involved in his church.

The Bible describes Christ’s relationship with His church in the most intimate terms: “Now you [plural] are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Co 12:27). You can’t get more intimate with Christ than to be a part of his own body. But here is the rub: you cannot be his lone body part. Intimacy with Christ is inseparable from intimacy with the other parts of his body.

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body . . . and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many .  . . The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ . . . If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.” (1 Cor 12:12-14, 17-20).

Along these same lines, the Bible likens our relationship with Christ to the “one flesh” union of marriage.

“ . . . For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph 5.29-32).

When God joins each of us in mystical union with his Son, he is also joining each one of us with Christ’s church. As Paul puts it,  “. . .  I betrothed you [plural] to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Co 11. 2). In other words, I am not the bride of Christ, we are. To be the bride of Christ is to be a part of his church.

As challenging as it is, there is only one place to experience the fullness of Christ, and that is in the church, which is “the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph 1:23b). The church is where the riches of our Father’s glorious inheritance are invested (Eph. 1:18). It is the gathering of people who are being built together by the Spirit into a dwelling place for God—a spiritual house (Eph 2:22, 1 Pt 2:5b). The church is the focal point of the Spirit’s power and the epicenter of our individual spiritual growth. It is in the context of the church that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are poured out, and their exercise is to be used for building up the body (cf 1 Co 14:5, 12, 17). It is the growth of unity and love within the church that displays the power of the gospel to the world (Jn 13.25, 1 Jn. 1.9-10). And it is through the church that “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:1-b). The church is also our destiny—the new Jerusalem in which we will dwell not alone with Christ but all of us together for eternity (Rev. 21: 1-3).

This is why Scripture places the local church squarely at the center of the spiritual life of every believer and why it is so concerned, particularly in the Pastoral Epistles, with establishing the authority structure of the churches, ensuring that duly qualified elders are appointed to oversee and “care for God’s church” (see 1 Tim 3 and Titus 1:5ff). These local leaders are the ones mandated by God to “shepherd the flock of God that is among [them], exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have [them]; not for shameful gain, but eagerly . . . (1 Pt. 5:2). And we, the flock, are commanded to “Obey [our] leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over [our] souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to [us]” (Heb. 13:17).

This biblical authority structure is intended to be the primary framework for discipleship, equipping, and ministry. Our spiritual development was never meant to take place apart from the flock, nor are we individual believers meant to be the shepherds of our own growth and discipleship. Sadly, too many church leaders have neglected the responsibility of discipling, leaving their hungry flock to fend for themselves among the plethora of influencers—YouTubers, celebrity pastors, authors, pundits, and even parachurch organizations. But also sadly, too many of us who do have faithful, biblical shepherds, are failing to make the ministry of our local church the focal point of our spiritual growth, allowing the influence and the authority of our biblically ordained leaders to be crowded out by a thousand other voices who will not have to give an account to God for our souls.

I’m not suggesting we never read books or listen to pastors beside our own, but we must remember that not even the best of them is charged with the responsibility of shepherding us. They aren’t here to weep or rejoice with us. They aren’t here to forgive us when we wrong them. They aren’t here to recognize our spiritual gifts and direct them to their most effective uses. They aren’t here to see us puffing up with pride from all our internet learning. They aren’t here to see us treating one another in ways that don’t reflect the grace of our Savior. They aren’t here to correct our false notions. They aren’t here to witness our sin and divisiveness. And they certainly aren’t here to see us wander away and steer us back to the sheepfold and to the Shepherd of our souls.