Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. And yet I will show you the most excellent way. (1 Corinthians 12:12-31)
You may have noticed in our study last week of the first half of 1 Corinthians 12, that I referred to Jesus several times and pointed out how Jesus had certain gifts, like the gift of prophecy and healing. Now, there is a sense in which I think we can say that Jesus had all the gifts of the Spirit. And now, after his death, resurrection, and ascension, he pours out his Spirit on the whole church. And his Spirit infuses every Christian so that all these gifts explode into our lives. In a very real sense, as Paul says, we are the body of Christ.
Michael Green puts it this way,
The church is not a building, not a voluntary society, not an optional extra at the end of a busy week. It is the body of Christ… He [Paul] does not say that the church is like a body. He says that the church is the body of Christ.
When you come right down to it, Paul has three main themes in this chapter: variety, unity, and ministry. In the body of Christ ministry, unity, and variety are the way to get the Church M U V ING along! Let’s see how these themes appear in this part of chapter 12…
Variety
First, we see the theme of variety. If you hadn’t noticed before, the Church of Jesus Christ, big “C”, is filled with a variety of people…a bunch of different kinds of nuts, or fruits and nuts, some people say!
Paul puts it this way… he says that the church is the body of Christ, and as a body, the church has many parts. This passage in 1 Corinthians 12 is the reason why we talk about church membership. We are each members of the body of Christ just like an arm or a leg is a member of my physical body.
C. S. Lewis, who was an Anglican, once gave a lecture to a group of Orthodox Christians in Oxford and the lecture was on this very topic of Membership. Lewis says…
The very word membership is of Christian origin, but it has been taken over by the world and emptied of all meaning. In any book on logic you may see the expression “members of a class.” It must be most emphatically stated that the items or particulars included in a homogeneous class are almost the reverse of what St. Paul meant by members. By members (μέλη) he meant what we should call organs, things essentially different from, and complementary to, one another, things differing not only in structure and function but also in dignity…
Unity
So how does this diverse body known as the Church really become one? It happens, Paul says, through the Holy Spirit. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit is the one who makes us part of the Body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12 is the one place in the New Testament, outside of the Gospels and Acts, where Spirit baptism is mentioned.
Again, I love what Michael Green says about this. He says that… “The body of Christ, if coupled with the spirit of Christ, reproduces something of the life of Christ in every church.”
Spirit baptism is so important. It is how we get washed. It’s like that old commercial for Lever 2000 soap. The Holy Spirit is for us and our 2000 parts!
John the Baptist was the first one to speak of Spirit baptism. He said,
After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. (Mark 1:7-8)
Immediately before his ascension, Jesus promised his first disciples, “John baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” And that is precisely what happened on Pentecost. In his sermon on that day Peter said, “Exalted to the right hand of God, he [Jesus] has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.” When Cornelius, a Gentile, later received the Holy Spirit, Peter referred to this as Spirit baptism as well in Acts 11:16.
In Romans 8:9 Paul says…
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
Paul makes it clear that there is no separate baptism of the Spirit apart from conversion, apart from coming to faith in Christ.
However, there is growth in our understanding of the Spirit throughout our Christian journey. Paul says, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25)
Paul also makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 12 that Christians are not merely baptized/washed in the Spirit, but we need to drink of the Spirit. We need to get the Spirit inside of us to be Christian at all.
While Spirit baptism is once for all time, filling with the Spirit is something that needs to happen repeatedly in our lives. The book of Acts talks about being filled with the Spirit. (Acts 4:8, 31; 9:17) And Paul commands the Christians in Ephesus to be filled with the Spirit. (Ephesians 4:18) Apparently, we can leak the Holy Spirit and need to be re-filled from time to time.
How, you might ask, do we get baptized or filled with the Spirit? Jesus answered that question when he said…
Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:11-14)
So, if you are not sure if you have ever received the Holy Spirit, why not ask God to fill you with his Spirit today? Or if you have received the Spirit, why not ask for a fresh in-filling?
Ministry
Paul tells us that the Church is the Body of Christ, a body with many parts. All the diverse parts are made part of one body by the Holy Spirit. But then Paul goes on to tell us how each of the parts of the body should relate to one another through ministry.
Paul says that each part is dependent on the others. There is to be inter-dependence in the body of Christ. No part is independent of all the others and no part is completely dependent solely on others. We are to be inter-dependent just like a couple in a good, healthy marriage. No part of the Body of Christ can rightfully say to another part: “I don’t need you.”
Now, obviously, there are some members of the body of Christ that seem stronger than others, just as there are parts of our physical body that appear to be stronger than other parts from time to time. But, Paul says, those parts that seem weaker are truly indispensable.
We have already seen how there were deplorable divisions in the Church at Corinth. Paul says that rather than there being divisions in the church, everyone in the church should show equal concern for one another. If one part suffers, all suffer; if one part is honored, everyone rejoices.
Paul suggests here what he spells out in more detail elsewhere. Namely, that there is to be a “one another” ministry in the Body of Christ. The New Testament talks about this repeatedly…
- Love one another. (John 13:34; Hebrews 13:1; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 3:11)
- Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. (Romans 12:10)
- Live in harmony with one another. (Romans 12:16)
- Stop passing judgment on one another. (Romans 14:13)
- Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, to bring praise to God. (Romans 15:7)
- Instruct one another. (Romans 15:14)
- Greet one another with a holy kiss. (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Peter 5:14)
- Agree with one another. (1 Corinthians 1:10)
- Encourage one another. (2 Corinthians 13:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:18; 5:11; Hebrews 3:13; 10:25)
- Serve one another humbly in love. (Galatians 5:13)
- Bear with one another in love. (Ephesians 4:2)
- Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)
- Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. (Ephesians 5:19)
- Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21)
- Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. (Colossians 3:13)
- Teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. (Colossians 3:16)
- And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. (Hebrews 10:24)
- Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. (James 5:16)
- Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. (1 Peter 4:9)
- Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. (1 Peter 5:5)
These “one another” commands appear 100 times in 94 verses in the New Testament. Paul wrote 60% of the “one another” commands. One-third of the “one another” commands are about the church getting along in unity. One third of the commands instruct Christians to love one another. 15% stress an attitude of humility. Some people have counted as many as 30 distinct, positive, “one another” commands in the New Testament.
Part of “one-anothering” is sharing our spiritual gifts with one another. At the end of 1 Corinthians 12, Paul talks once again about the different gifts in the Body of Christ. However, in this section Paul focuses not on the gifts per se, but on the gifted people. He mentions apostles, prophets, teachers, miracle-workers, healers, helpers, administrators, tongues-speakers, and interpreters.
There is some overlap and some difference between this list and the earlier one in 1 Corinthians 12. When I add the two together, I get a total of twelve spiritual gifts mentioned in this chapter. There are 7 mentioned in Romans 12, 5 in Ephesians 4, and 4 in 1 Peter 4. None of these lists are complete in and of themselves. There is overlap. And I don’t think that even if you add all these gifts together and compile a list you will have a complete list of all the spiritual gifts. That’s true because there are also some spiritual gifts mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures like craftsmanship and music. And besides, the Holy Spirit can give whatever gifts he wants to give, to whomever he wants to give them, whenever he wants to give them.
Since the gifts of the Spirit have been distributed by God, and since no one gift is possessed by every member of the Church, nor does any one member possess them all, there is no cause for coveting gifts one has not received. Note: every believer has at least one gift, but no one gift is given to every believer.
1 Corinthians 12:31 says, “Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.” That sounds like a command, but it may be a simple statement. It may be that Paul is saying, “You desire whatever you think are the best gifts. OK, then let me show you the best gift of all.” If you want to know what the best gift is out of all the spiritual gifts, you will have to wait until next week to find out!
Suffice to say for this week, if we want to get the church M U V ING along then we need three things: ministry, unity, and variety. Imagine what the Church would be like if we really let the Holy Spirit lead us. If this happened then we would be led by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, not by the machinations and rubrics of mere human beings. We would trust the gifts of the Spirit to accomplish the work that Christ has for his Body. And we would honor each part of his Body for doing the work that only that part can do.
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