THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” (John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, chapter 17)
If salvation is, as I am on record as saying, a relationship with God, it is worth noting that it is a relationship which he has with us, as a community, not simply with me, as an individual.
The books of the New Testament were, as a rule, written to local churches. They would have been read to the gathered believers rather than by individuals on their own (since it would have been extremely rare for anyone to have owned a private copy of the Bible, even if they know how to read). Many precious scriptural promises which we may be tempted to apply individually (e.g. Philippians 1.6) turn out, on closer inspection, to be promises originally made to communities.
This corporate sense can be seen in the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer, as the Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft notes –
“It is the mystery of solidarity, the mystery of the Mystical Body. Each individual who prays the prayer is to call God not only “my Father” but “our Father.” Each individual is to pray in the name of the whole Church … Therefore we are each responsible for all when we work and when we pray. This is not just a pious feeling but an awesome fact. When I pray, I have effects on my grandchildren, on some stranger I have never met, on the most abandoned soul in the world.” (Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith, chapter 31)
An interesting corollary of this teaching is the idea that those who die in Christ, do not thereby cease to be members of the church. When believers pray or worship God, they can do so in the knowledge that their forerunners in the faith are praying and worshiping with them. This is the communion of saints, a great crowd of witnesses (Hebrews 12.1) who have run the race before us and who now cheer us on.
None of this means, however, that I am advocating collectivism or the sacrifice of the individual to the group. I have no sympathy for spiritual tyranny or enforced or abusive religion. I am well aware that such appeals to the corporate can be (and have been) abused to the enormous detriment of individuals, but there is error, I would argue, at both extremes of the spectrum. Perhaps, the Scriptural picture of the members and the body (1 Corinthians 12) is helpful here. The body cannot live without its members (and is harmed if any of its members is harmed) but the individual members are meant to form, and function, as a body.
(See other posts in this series and buy Edward’s book)