When we say the body, we do not mean any sort of body, or any kind
of body, but _the body of Christ_; _the one body_ into which all
were immersed in the time of the apostles. This is the same as in
“the Church of God,” “the kingdom of God.” The body of Christ has no
_branches_ except the individual members. There are no _branch bodies_.
The kingdom of God has no branches. Every citizen is in the kingdom,
and those not in the kingdom are not citizens at all.
The Church of God, the body of Christ, or the kingdom, is a divine
institution. The Lord built his church on the rock, and no man who
understands the matter, “loves the Lord Jesus Christ with all his soul”
while he says, “I care not to what church a man identifies himself.”
The man who identifies himself with the Church of God, or the body of
Christ, identifies himself with God, Christ and the Holy Spirit—with
the entire heavenly family. This is what we _care for_. But identifying
a man with those bodies styled _branches_ is another matter. We can not
love the Lord Jesus Christ with all the soul and _care not_ whether we
are identified with his body, or, which is the same, with him or some
other body or person.
But let us inquire about these branches. Are they branches of the
Church of God? The Church of God has never _branched any_ that we
know of. The body of Christ has no branches except the individual
members and they all belong to _the body_, and not to a branch of the
body. A man is simply in the body, or not in it. The kingdom of God
has no branches. A man is simply _a citizen_, or _he is not_. If our
correspondent desires to know whether he is in a branch of the Church
of God let him trace the _branch_ with which he is identified back to
where it _branched off_, and see what it branched off from; whether it
branched off from another branch, or from the main body. If it branched
off from another branch, then he might trace that other branch and see
what it branched off from. Before he gets back to the _body_ he may
find some _branches_ that are no credit to anybody.
The departures from the body and from the law of God are not honored as
_branches of the body_. They are styled in Scripture a “falling away,”
the _apostasy_. They are departures from God, from Christ and from the
Holy Spirit. The great apostasy is styled the Man of Sin, the Son of
Perdition. That is the first branch. We do not want to be identified
with it, or any branch of it, or any _branch of a branch_ of it. We
have gone back to the body of Christ from which it departed, and become
identified with that body itself, and will recognize no departure from
it, no matter how many pretty names may be given to it, nor how many
good people belong to it, but will still hold it to be an apostasy, or
a departure from God. There can be no union in _branches_ only _branch
union_; there can be union in the _one body_, in the one faith, under
the one Lord, and nowhere else, such as the Lord will approve.