The Breath of the Church

Witnessing the advent of the New Testament Church as it is recorded in the book of Acts, something very basic should strike us. Namely, that the Church is a spiritual organism. She is BORN by the Holy Spirit (before Pentecost, there was no Church; just the incarnate Jesus and his disciples). She LIVES in and by the Spirit (The Book of Acts is essentially a record of prayer meetings, and the things that happen in between them under the empowering, unction, guidance of the Spirit), and it follows that the Church would/will PERISH for want of the Spirit. 

To use different scriptural language, we can put it this way: The Spirit is the breath that fills the Body of Christ.

Consider: 

The human body can survive up to two months without food.

That same body can survive 3-5 days without water.

That same body will only survive 3-5 minutes without breathing. 

30 seconds without oxygen is enough to start causing damage to the brain…

On the most basic level, this is how we know whether or not a person is alive: Are they BREATHING? 

Considering the testimony of the New Testament, I think we can say that the Church is more or less subject to the same assessment. That, in the same way a body devoid of breath/breathing is (or is very soon to be) dead, a church devoid of the Spirit of God simply cannot be ALIVE in the sense that God intends it to be. 

We remember Ezekiel 36-37, as the prophet is called to prophesy over a valley full of bones. Then, these bones very dramatically reconstitute into bodies; a vast army of remade bodies. But after a minute of seeing the result of this miracle, Ezekiel realizes that there’s a problem: these people weren’t BREATHING, yet. There were BODIES, but was no BREATH in them.

“So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” (Ezekiel 37:7–9)

A body without breath is not alive. And, the Spirit of Christ is the breath of the Body of Christ; the Church. As such, there is simply no life, no way, no Church, apart from the Spirit. And so, as local congregations, it bears our paying attention, and asking: What is the state of our “respiratory health”? Is the breath of God’s Spirit filling our corporate lungs? How’s our breathing, Church?

This bears upon Duncan Campbell’s “Altar of the Church”, and a central commitment of the Revival Covenant: the commitment on the part of congregations to gather to seek the Lord and his Kingdom in prayer together on a weekly basis. If the “dry bones” of the Western Church are to live again, it will surely begin with living breathing, praying congregations.

Rev. Chris Bannon
Area Coordinator North, Revive New England