In society and culture, the word “Church” is used in various senses. It might be treated as a building intended for religious activities, a denomination, a local community, or a meeting of the group of believers professing Christ. The word “Church” can mean all the Christians in a given country, or only those who relate themselves to a certain theological current or tradition.
The Church is not a new religion, a special religious organization, or a special system of a spiritual reformation of the human society in the world. Nothing close to that meaning has been told by the Lord – therefore, undoubtedly, the Church is the society of His pupils.
The Church, through which the risen Lord acts in the world, often is figuratively named the body of Christ, “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”(King James Version, Rom. 12.5).
The Church, i.e. the Body of the Christ, consists of all the revived souls, each of which is expiated by the blood of the Christ, and transformed by the Holy Spirit. In such way Paul has expressed the live, indissoluble connection of the Lord with the believers, shown in the constant influence of the Christ on Church, which He invigorates and fills with His Spirit; being The Head of the Church, “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body” (Eph. 5.23), the Church owing to Him finds life.
In addition to this, in the image of the Body of Christ, Christians see the ideal model of the true mutual relations between the members of the Church, based on dialogue in the Christ; like organs of one Body, the members of the Church help, support and supplement each other.
Describing the Church as a body, there are many places in the New Testament that run across such image of the Church. When Paul compares the church to a human body, “And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1.22-23), it is obvious that he speaks here about the unity and interrelation of all the members of the Church. Comparing the Church not merely with the body, but with the body of the Christ, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Cor. 12.27), Paul places the emphasis on the unity of the believers through their communication with the Christ.
It is remarkable that from such metaphor, another one organically follows, notably the correlation of the Christ and the Church as the Head and the Body, “And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Col. 1.18). The text of the Epistle to the Colossians (Col. 1.1-8), affords ground for saying that the connection of the Church with the Head defines its viability. Through His Rise, all the believers find participation in a new life, where following the same language of images, if the Head was separated from the body, it will die.