«　WEEK 3　DAY 3　»

　　Matt. 16:18 …Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

　　Rom. 12:5 So we who are many are one Body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

　　16:16 …All the churches of Christ greet you.

　　We need to see the profit of the Body to the local churches and the profit of the local churches to the Body. We can use a family as an illustration of this…. If we do not have a father, we are orphans. An orphan does not receive the profit, the benefit, from a father, so he suffers a lot. But a man who does not have any children also suffers. This is a good illustration of how the Body of Christ is the source of the local churches. Such a universal Body is like the father to all the churches, and all the churches are like the children to the father.

　　Many of the members in a local church may not actually be saved directly by that church. Instead, they are saved elsewhere and come from other localities. This is the benefit from the Body to that local church. This is the profit from the “father” to his “child.” Some among us enjoyed the inheritance from the Body, but then they gave up the Body and would not care for the Body. They have caused divisions, and divisions are a part of degraded Christianity. (CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Problems Causing the Turmoils in the Church Life,” p. 105)

　　The church that Christ is building is the universal church, not the church in a nation or the church in a city. In Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus said to Peter, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.”…Christ Himself is the very rock upon which the church is built. The church in Matthew 16:18 is the universal church, the one church in the entire universe.

　　The universal church is the unique Body of Christ. According to Ephesians 1:22-23, Christ is the Head, and the church is His Body. Christ the Head has only one Body (4:4). It is abnormal for a head to have more than one body…. In Christianity today, the unique Body of Christ has been divided into countless “bodies.”…All the different [so-called churches] claim that their Head is Christ. This means that the one Head, Christ, has many bodies. This is not only wrong, but this is grotesque. In the midst of today’s abnormal situation, we strongly affirm that the Body of Christ is uniquely one. There is one Head and one Body. Surely, this one Body cannot be a particular local church. This one Body must be the universal church, the church as a whole. Christ as the Head is unique, and the universal church as the Body is also unique.

　　This one universal church, one Body, comprises all the local churches. There may be thousands of local churches, but together they constitute one universal church. Each local church is only a part of the universal church. The universal church is the unique Body of Christ, and all the local churches are simply the local expressions of that one Body.

　　The local churches compose the one universal church. Acts 15:41 speaks of the churches in Syria and Cilicia, and Romans 16:4 mentions the churches in the Gentile world. Second Corinthians 8:1 speaks of the churches in the province of Macedonia; Galatians 1:2, of the churches in the province of Galatia; and Revelation 1:4, of the churches in the province of Asia…. In the New Testament we can see many local churches, and together these local churches are considered as one universal church.

　　The local churches are the local expressions of the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 2:22)…. Universally, all the churches are one Body, and locally, every local church is a local expression of that universal Body. A local church is not the Body; it is only a part of the Body. It is a local expression of the Body. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 4, “Vital Factors for the Recovery of the Church Life,” pp. 488-490)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 1, “Further Consideration of the Eldership, the Region of Work, and the Care for the Body of Christ,” chs. 1-2