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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.
Colossians 1: 15 - 20
The bombshell is in verse 16: 'in him all things ... visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - all things have been created through him and for him'. These are the very things that enslave us! And these things were created through him and for him!
But note these are human institutions. The very institutions that enslave and disempower us are created though and for him. The thing is, these institutions are both necessary and oppressive.
The law is necessary to enable the development of culture and society. There has to be legal redress for wrongs done because the alternative is vigilantism. But these very institutions, designed to protect us, become oppressive. Why? Because in our minds we absolutise them and make them into gods.
The promised reconciliation is where these institutions begin to work as they should and not as the play things of perfectionist control freaks.
And so we learn, the church is intended to be the beginning of this alternative way, verse 18 'he is the head of the body, the church'. This accounts for the difficulties we all encounter. We have institutions based on the old methods shot through with the brilliance of a new way of working. The church is a hybrid institution, both near to and far from the will of God.
I think this is why the church is broken. It is the broken body of Christ because it is only in its brokenness that a place can be found for all.
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