The Church as figure of Jesus

We publish the excerpt taken from the writings of the evangelical theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer read during the ecumenical celebration in Saint Paul outside the walls.

“In Christ there was re-created the form of man before God. It was not an outcome of the place or the time, of the climate or the race, of the individual or the society, or of religion or of taste, but quite simply of the life of mankind as such, that mankind at this point recognized its image and its hope. What befell Christ had befallen mankind. It is a mystery, for which there is no explanation, that only a part of mankind recognise the form of their Redeemer. The longing of the Incarnate to take form in all men is as yet still unsatisfied. He bore the form of man as a whole, and yet He can take form only in a small band. These are his Church. “Formation” consequently means in the first place Jesus' taking form in his Church. What takes form here is the form of Jesus Christ himself. The New Testament states the case profoundly and clearly when it calls the Church the Body of Christ. The body is the form. So the Church is not a religious community of worshippers of Christ but is Christ himself who has taken form among men. The Church can be called the Body of Christ because in Christ's Body man is really taken up by him, and so too, therefore, are all mankind. The Church, then, bears the form which is in truth the proper form of all humanity. The image in which she is formed is the image of man. What takes place in her takes place as an example and substitute for all men. But it is impossible to state clearly enough that the Church, too, is not an independent form by herself, side by side with the form of Christ, and that she, too, can therefore never lay claim to an independent character, title, authority or dignity on her own account and apart from him. The Church is nothing but a section of humanity in which Christ has really taken form. What we have here is utterly and completely the form of Jesus Christ and not some other form side by side with him. The Church is man in Christ, incarnate, sentenced and awakened to new life. In the first instance therefore, she has essentially nothing whatever to do with the so-called religious functions of man, but with the whole man in his existence in the world with all its implications. What matters in the Church is not religion but the form of Christ, and its taking form amidst a band of men. If we allow ourselves to lose sight of this, even for an instant, we inevitably relapse into that programme-planning for the ethical or religious shaping of the world, which was where we set out from.”