_in the body_"--the church (1 Cor. 12:18). "And the Lord added _to
the church_ daily such as should be saved" (Acts 2:47). They preached
Christ as the personification of "truth." But they also taught that
the gospel was a special "treasure" committed to the church for
dispensing to the nations. Paul said that God hath "committed _unto
us_ the word of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5:19). Therefore he could
represent the church of God "as the pillar and ground of the
truth." They preached him as "life," but he was also the life of the
collective body of believers as well as of individuals. He dwelt in
his church. He was its life, and through it he manifested himself
in the only form in which, since the incarnation, he can be fully
exhibited to men.

[Sidenote: Avoiding extremes]

The fact that Romanism has stressed the "church" idea, parading before
the world as the church an organic body devoid of true spiritual life,
a mere corpse, is no reason justifying a view which, ignoring the
practical church relationship taught in the New Testament, talks
glibly of an ethereal, intangible, ghostly something which, without a
body, lacks all practical contact with men. The Bible standard is the
proper union of soul and body. It is certain that, as in apostolic
days, such union is necessary to the proper exhibition of the divine
life and absolutely essential to the full accomplishment of the divine
purposes in Christ's great redemptive plan.

Christ, the life of his spiritual body, and the life-giver, remains
the same in all ages. Hence the church _body_ is the part that has
been disrupted and corrupted by apostasy and sectarianism, and is
therefore the sphere of reformatory effort. And while reformation