Jesus Ain't Yo' Boyfriend!

A culture of faith that is weighted primarily towards the emphasis of the individual usually leads to a higher view of the individual and a lower view of God. The individual is actually misled because he or she is removed from the context in which they were intended to function.

Many of the terms that the New Testament uses to describe Christ’s relationship to us are plural, rather than singular. The idea of an individual relationship with God was non-existent in Jewish culture prior to Christ. And even to this day, this is one of the central problems that many faithful Jews have with Christians. Before orthodox Jews can read the scriptures or pray publicly, they must have a group of ten gathered (a minyan). In their relationship with God, there is still an overwhelming sense of the individual’s context in community.

We who follow Jesus are described by scripture in corporate terms such as the ‘Body’ or the ‘Bride’ of Christ (Romans 12, I Cor. 12, Revelation 19), and there are many promises from Christ to the corporate Body. But what is true for the whole may not be accurate to describe the part. When you hear of a couple who are in love and are planning on getting married, you don’t hear the man describe how captivated he is with the cell that is found in the lower tibia of his bride-to-be. Instead you hear of his love for all of her-for the whole. The cell of the tibia gets to be a part of the love of the bridegroom because it is a part of the whole body.

You and I are merely individual cells in the worldwide body of Christ. We have a part to play and a function inside the body, but I am not the body, I am merely a part of the body. A cell is nothing but useless if it is cut off from its supply of oxygen, waste removal, blood and food. But inside an organ, each cell performs a valuable part of a function that keeps the body healthy. This is our context; this is where we find ourselves described in New Testament terms.

Somehow we have lost our context. Somehow we have been led to believe that Jesus can be described as a “boyfriend” by a single Christian sister. Somehow we have romanticized the Love of Christ into filling a void and taking a role that Jesus never promised to fulfill. He declared that He loved the Body. The Body of Christ, which is a plurality of all, is who He is returning to rescue. The Marriage Supper isn’t for me, it is for the Bride, and I am merely a cell in the Body of His Bride. I am loved by Him, and I am saved by Him, but I need to remember my context.

I say this because our Christian sub-culture has been packaging Jesus in ways that Scripture never describes. There is reason to be concerned when Jesus, who was poor and homeless as he ministered here on the earth, becomes a Savior who promises us financial gain. There is reason to be concerned when we ignore our greed and covetousness while we judge others for shortcomings that fall in other areas. Something inside us should be shaken to the core when we as a corporate church declare the sanctity of life for the unborn but forget to care for that same life once the person is born.

Jesus doesn’t merely have a personal relationship with us. He also has a corporate relationship with His people. Everything is corporate with God; the individual is always part of the greater group. God didn’t create a planet, he created solar systems. God didn’t create a species, He fashioned entire ecosystems. Even God is triune, in community with Himself. Sometimes we forget and focus on only one aspect of the Trinity, just as we forget and focus only on “Jesus and me.” By focusing too heavily on the individual, we miss the value in the holiness of corporate relationship with our God.

When we think it’s “just me and God,” we must remember the prophet that tried to pull that line on his God (I Kings 19, Romans 11:2-5). As Elijah lamented that he was the only one who was left to truly follow, God rebuked him and put him in his place. God declared that there were seven thousand others in Israel that hadn’t worshiped another god, in order to teach Elisha that he was part of the corporate. God dealt with Elisha as an individual, but Elisha had forgotten his part in the Body.

If you have forgotten your part in the community relationship that God has with His people, I implore you to repent of your pride and embrace all those who are serving, worshiping and following Christ. These are your brothers and sisters, and by forgetting God’s relationship with them as well, you have lifted yourself up above them. Rather, consider others higher than yourself, and serve one another. And then you will rejoice in your relationship with God through the Body, knowing that in some way you will be part of the promise. When Christ is seen as Savior, it’s hard for any individual to claim Him as boyfriend. The corporate is the context.

Stop the "Me" Monster

The world revolves around “me.” Not us, not we, but me. The idea of individualism has so invaded our society and cultures that we all do our best to have our own unique stamp that describes us. We all have our own internet pages (Facebook, Myspace, blogs, Xanga, whatever). And sites like Myspace will let you list your own “Favs” for bands, movies, books and more! Your individualism is boosted by the originality and obscurity of your choices.



I know people who will scour the internet for hours, listening to all kinds of music to find the next indie band before they hit the radar. But as soon as that band hits it big, then they are off looking for the next obscure band to discover before everyone else does. They want to be creative as individuals because there’s a cultural tendency to vilify the corporate and conglomerate (often for good reasons) as bad, and the small, artsy and individual as better.



Biblically, there are so many reasons to see ourselves loved by God as individuals. He has created each of us with our own unique stamp-not of movies, music and books, but a stamp of DNA where our own code is written on the nucleus of each cell. He reveals His majesty and His creativity in the variety of His creation. Millions upon millions of different species walk, crawl, swim and roam this earth and declare His glory.



But the Bible also reveals another way that God deals with us, and that is corporately, or as a group. Jesus spoke to groups of people in a way that seemingly painted all those who qualified with a broad brush. It seems that Christ knew that all those who were of that particular group in a society tended to have the same patterns and weaknesses. He spoke of the difficulty of the rich to enter the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25). He spoke to all the Pharisees and warned them as a group (Matthew 23).



We also see that in the final book of the Bible, there are seven letters written to seven churches, not seven individuals. Jesus has John write down these letters to warn the churches of their corporate attitudes, successes and weaknesses. He was treating them as a corporate group, not only as individuals.



God also makes His covenants with groups of people. The covenants He made with Noah (Gen 9) and Abraham (Gen 15, 17) are still extended to us today. These were covenants God made with His children corporately, and this pattern is continued the Sinai desert when God makes His covenant with Israel as a nation. And when Jesus declares the New Covenant at the Last Supper, He preaches it to all the apostles gathered there. It’s important to note that individually we choose to surrender to Christ, but it’s corporately that we are united in Him.



For too long we have talked, preached and discussed our individual relationships with Christ and ignored our bond together as the Body and Bride of Christ. Alone, by myself, I am not His Body and Bride. It is only as part of the corporate Body of Christ that I am part of the promise-according to Romans I have been grafted into the tree of Israel as a branch-which only works if the branch is a part of the entire tree (Romans 11).



To continue to focus on how much God loves me as an individual is important. But to ignore the ideas in scripture that I am to be a part of the corporate Body leads to many of the problems that the church is currently dealing with. This is an incomplete and unhealthy view of scripture. And if we understand that in Revelation Jesus was writing a letter to a church, if He wrote our church a letter we would be included as a part of the problem. We cannot do what we often want to do, which is distance ourselves from the weaknesses of the church while embracing the strengths.



Through my next few blogs, we’ll discuss some of the repercussions of an individualistic culture of Christianity (which is itself an oxymoron). I’ve been working on a book, so lately all my writing as gone towards that direction. Thanks for coming back.



andrew