The Planting and the Harvest

DeVern F. Fromke explains in his book The Ultimate Intention how the church is as much the body of Christ as the Lord Jesus' human body was on earth and must be planted in death in order to bring forth a harvest of life:

"A wonderful, though seldom detected, theme runs through the book of Hebrews. Briefly, it is the story of two bodies the Father has designed for His Son. As a Husbandman, the Father planted His only begotten Son and waits for the growth and harvest of many sons who will one day come to glory. God has spoken His full and all-inclusive message by this Son and He will continue to speak throughout the whole universe in ages to come by His coming (corporate) Son.

". . . Here are two bodies: '. . . when He (Christ) entered into the world, He said . . . you have made a body for Me [to offer]' (Heb. 10:5, A.N.T.). This natural body which He received was offered (planted) in death. But there is another Body of which Paul speaks in Colossians 1:18 which is the many-membered Body--the Church.

"God's Word speaks much of the first body which the Lord Jesus sacrificed on the Cross that we might experience a personal setting apart unto God (Heb, 10:10). But here we have only the foothills of truth. The summit reaches far up into a corporate experience of which we only have glimpses at present. 'Till we all come . . . unto a perfect man,' Paul wrote, 'unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ' (Eph. 4:13). Not unto perfect men, but one perfect man--all of us together, Head and Body--a perfect man. 'For as the body is one, and hath many members and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ' (1 Cor. 12:12). Norman Grubb notes that it does not say, 'so also is the body of Christ,' but 'so also is Christ.' Can we conceive of this? We are led to a final unification with Christ which is beyond our present understanding. When the Father fulfills the mystery of His will, He will gather together 'in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth' (Eph. 1:10).

"We have barest glimpses of future glories . . . Even though there is much we have not been told, the truths revealed take us from the marvelous truth of Christ in us to the even more wonderful revelation of us in Christ. Who can measure the implications of this?

"However, we are not left in the dark concerning one fact: God's vision is not centered so much on the individual, as on the Church; nor are His mighty works done through the single member, but through the Body. Why then, we may ask, do we spend so much time searching into our individual relationship of Him? Why did Jesus and those who followed Him show utmost concern for individuals? Because as was said of Soren Kierkegaard:

"'When he spoke to the individual, calling him to seek purity of heart and integrity of will, he was doing the thing he believed best calculated to fit men to act as a responsible community. If he spoke more of the individual than of the community, it was because the first thing necessary was to restore the true individuality without which true community is not possible. Individuality, not individualism, was his primary aim.'

"Through inner integration--that holiness which is wholeness--we are liberated from self-centeredness in order that the Head of the Body can share with us His body-consciousness.

". . . Somehow we are moved with the deepest conviction that, while individual members have been caught by the revelation of living unto THE HEAD, surely the hour of crisis is at hand when God will use persecution and pressure to bring the Church as a Body to that revelation. Her captivity must be turned before she will turn from ease, pleasure and the glory of her own accomplishments. Until her captivity is turned, she will never cease from programming and building costly monuments to her own honor.

". . . Evidently God's people are awakening to their need of maturity. An increasing sense of pressure, helplessness and failure has taken possession of them, and throughout the world one hears the groaning for grain-ripening rain. The harvest of God's planting will mature, but the individual kernel does not reach that maturity by living with a primary concern for its own welfare and growth. God's way is just the opposite. Real maturity and fruitfulness unto God is always manifest in a sharing of God's concern for the growth of others. Self-concern and self-saving is the way of spiritual death. As was true with God's Son, so it will be true with every 'corn of wheat' who would be fruitful.

'There is no gain but by a loss;
You cannot save but by a cross.
The corn of wheat, to multiply,
Must fall into the ground and die.
Wherever you ripe fields behold,
Waving to God their sheaves of gold,
Be sure some corn of wheat has died,
Some soul has there been crucified;
Someone has wrestled, wept and prayed,
And fought hell's legions undismayed.'

-- Selected