The Church and Salvation I ~ The Body of Christ: Ephesians 1:22-2:3, especially vss. 22, 23: "And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all."
Over the course of the two millennia which separate us in time from "those things which have come to pass for us: the Cross, the Grave, the Resurrection on the third day," the Ascension and the Outpouring of the Spirit, much has been said and written about the relationship between the Church and salvation. These Mysteries are so vast that our minds incline to think of them in simple, convenient, or short-hand terms. As a result, the great riches of the Church and of the salvation which she offers often are overlooked, lost, or unrealized. Since Ephesians especially dwells on the themes of Church and salvation, it is a ready source for exploring these realities and their application to our lives. Hence, between now and Friday, we shall consider these truths through the readings.
In today's passage, the Apostle Paul addresses the essence of salvation by means of three statements concerning what God has done in His great saving work in Christ: "put all things under" Christ's feet (vs. 22), "gave Him to be head of the Church" (vs. 22), and "made [us] alive" (vs. 1). Here is the panoply of salvation embracing the exaltation of Christ, His subduing of sin, Satan and death, and the creation of the Church as the Body of which Christ is the head.
In this reading, the Apostle first speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who bearing forever our humanity in His Person, is seated as the reigning, Divine monarch over all creation, both the visible, tangible cosmos, as well as the spiritual, invisible realms of angels and all the bodiless powers. As Orthodox Christians, we need especially to note this vision of the Savior, for too often it is narrowed down by some teachers to mean individual deliverance, whereas, in fact, salvation implies the restoration of the entire universe.
The Lord Jesus, as King and God, is "Christos Pantocrator," Christ the Almighty, the Ruler of All. Typically in Orthodox Churches, the central icon in the domes of our churches or the major one on the iconostasis depicts this very image. What is not under the Lord's feet? Nothing! Certainly no empire of man. All the hosts of evil that oppose God are under the sway of the Ruler of All. The incapacity of their present power is exposed by Christ's exaltation. Death, life, the farthest stars and galaxies - all is beneath His feet. None may successfully resist His power, although, for the moment, He restrains Himself from the full exercise of His sovereignty to allow us time to turn to Him, to swear fidelity and love to Him, to amend our lives, and henceforth to live not unto ourselves but unto Him, our Savior and God.
Furthermore, Christ as "Pantocrator" is not distant, removed, or unavailable. Listen to St. Nikolai of Zica: "Headless humanity is given a head in the Lord Jesus, risen from the dead. The body, severed from the head, begins to knit together with that head, bit by bit and part by part. Not all men who are called respond and are received under the Head. Those who do respond compose the Body that is called the Church." Incorporation into the Body of Christ is the way to be born again, to begin purification, and to move toward full union with the exalted Christ.
Membership in Christ is God's means of salvation, the way to be made alive (vs. 1): "As many of you as have been Baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27). We look back in time to strengthen our resolve to push on (Eph. 2:1-3). We "were dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1); now we are alive. The prince of this world was our ruler; now Christ is our King and our God! (vs. 2). We were "children of wrath" (vs. 3), but now are children of God.
Grant us in this world, the knowledge of Thy truth, and in the world to come, life everlasting.