Therefore, brothers, if we do the will of God our Father, we will belong to the first Church, the spiritual Church created before the sun and moon. But if we do not do the Lord’s will, we will fall under the Scripture that says, “My house became a den of robbers.” So let us choose to belong to the Church of life, so that we may be saved.
I do not think you are unaware that the living “Church is the body of Christ.” For Scripture says, “God made the human being male and female”: the male is Christ and the female is the Church. Moreover, the books and the Apostles say that the Church does not belong merely to the present but existed from the beginning. For she was spiritual, as our Jesus also was, and she was manifested in the last days so that she might save us.
The Church, being spiritual, was manifested in the flesh of Christ, showing us that if any of us preserves her in the flesh and does not corrupt her, they will receive her in the Holy Spirit. For this flesh is an antitype of the Spirit; therefore no one who corrupts the antitype will partake of the reality. So this is what it means, brothers: preserve the flesh so that you may partake of the Spirit.
If we say that the flesh is the Church and the Spirit is Christ, then whoever dishonors the flesh has dishonored the Church. Such a person, therefore, will not partake of the Spirit, who is Christ.
This flesh is capable of receiving so great a share in life and incorruption when the Holy Spirit is joined to it that no one can fully express or tell “what the Lord has prepared” for His elect.