 |  |
As an illustration of this "diversity in unity" the Apostle takes the human body, with
its head, its hands, its feet, its organs of sight, of smell, of hearing, and even those
members which have less honour, or are uncomely; and he declares, that:
"God hath set the members every one of them in the body as it hath pleased Him"
(I Cor. 12: 18).
Paul then reverts to the original theme, namely that of `spiritual gifts' saying:
"God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers,
after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues"
(I Cor. 12: 28).
Now all this is but an expansion of the statement of verse 6:
"There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God Which worketh all in all"
(I Cor. 12: 6).
In order to perceive the strong emphasis that is in this verse on the idea of
"in-working", let us give the verse a literal translation "diversities of energema
(inworkings) but it is the same God which energeo (inworketh) ta panta en pasin the all
things in all".
Keeping this feature in mind, but reserving it until we have taken our
examination further, let us look at the remaining passages. For obvious reasons, we defer
I Cor. 15: 28, until we can approach it armed with the knowledge gained from other
sources. Our next passage therefore must be Eph. 1: 23. Here we meet with a quotation
from Psa. 8:, which figures also in the context of I Cor. 15: 28, namely the
expression "all things under His feet", but as this demands separate treatment, we
concentrate for the time being on the actual passage which uses the expression "all in
all".
"And hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the
church which is His Body, the fullness of Him that filleth ta panta en pasi `all in all'."
(Eph. 1: 22, 23).
If we ponder this passage we shall see that the words `the fullness of Him that filleth
all in all' are an expansion of the meaning of the earlier part of the verse, thus:
A | a |
Head over all things.
b
| To the church which is His Body.
A | a |
The fullness of Him.
b
| That filth all in all.
Just as in Col. 3: 11 Christ and the church anticipates the goal of the ages, so
Eph. 1: 23 anticipates the goal as expressed in Eph. 3: 19:
"That ye may be filled with (or unto) all the fullness of God."