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No.17.
pp. 86 - 89
Having described the various sign gifts distributed sovereignally by the Holy Spirit to
believers in the Acts period, the Apostle Paul now deals with their functioning with
regard to the churches as a whole, and for a concrete example, what better illustration can
he use than a human body, which is a unity in diversity? This illustration was by no
means unique. It was frequently employed in the ancient world and we find allusions to
it in Socrates, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Marcus Antoninus. The Apostle writes:
"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body,
being many, are one body; so also is the Christ" (I Cor. 12: 12).
The A.V. and R.V. omit the expressed definite article before "Christ". Many
expositors can see that "the Christ" cannot refer just to Christ personally, for how can He
be likened to a human body which has uncomely as well as comely parts? (23). "Christ"
(Christos) means anointed, and "the Christ" can be used as the title of a church which has
been specially anointed. The believers to whom the Apostle John wrote were told "Ye
have an anointing" (chrisma) (I John 2: 20, 27), and this gave them the supernatural gift
of knowledge which we have already seen is contained in the list detailed in verses 8-10
of the chapter with which we are dealing. In his second letter to the Corinthian church
the Apostle wrote:
"Now He that confirmeth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us (chrio), is God"
(II Cor. 1: 21).
This `anointing' is very much to the point in I Cor. 12: 12. Moreover, the above
reference acquaints us with the fact that these supernatural gifts were confirmatory in
character as well as being signs. The teaching then in I Cor. 12: 12 is clear. Just as a
human body has many members, and each member has a particular part to play, not
independently, but for the well-being of the body as a whole, so should the Corinthian
assembly have functioned. The cliques which had come into being at Corinth and the
misusing of some of the spiritual gifts were rendering this unity null and void in practice,
and it is this unity which was so important and which Paul has stressed from various
angles.
"For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles,
whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit" (12: 13).
To be baptized into a special company was no new truth. We have already had the
baptism of all Israel unto Moses in I Cor. 10:, and this baptism was a spiritual baptism
without water, which united them with Moses and all for which He stood, and had its
origin in God's action, not in anything that Israel did. So it is here. The words `baptized'
and `made to drink' are in the aorist tense denoting that the action is past (not something
future to be sought) and was true of all believers at that time irrespective of their
condition. It was an action never to be repeated, being the work of the Holy Spirit.