(2) "BY ONE SPIRIT BAPTISED INTO ONE BODY"
(2) “BY ONE SPIRIT BAPTISED INTO ONE BODY”
It is important to remember that all the teaching in this epistle is of an elementary character. The apostle does not unfold to the Corinthians the wisdom of God, but confines his instruction to first principles. In this chapter the divine thought in the body is not given. There are only two verses in it which speak of the body: verse 13, “For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body”; and the statement in verse 27, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular”. The intervening verses introduce the natural body in the way of illustration.
In Colossians the important point is the revelation of the mystery, which is God’s mind in regard of the body. That is a great advance upon the mere statement that the saints are the body. The apostle says there, “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory”. That is the divine idea in the body. You will never understand the body if you do not get to that point. The idea in the body is not ecclesiastical, if you understand me, but moral. It is Christ’s body, and in every place in which it is mentioned in Scripture the truth is brought in as light to bear upon the saints. They had their church formation before the truth of the body was revealed. They were gathered in fellowship, and had the Lord’s supper before they knew anything at all of the body. They were in fellowship in a sense before the Spirit descended. There were those in Jerusalem who had been gathered by the testimony of the resurrection of Christ, and the Spirit descended and constituted them the house of God;
[p. 139] that was the beginning of the church. A long time after that the truth came out that they were Christ’s body. I believe no more serious mistake can be made than to look upon the body as giving the idea of ecclesiastical formation. The great thought of the body is that it is Christ’s body, and so it comes in as light for the saints.
In Romans 12 we are just brought up to the point of the one body. All the epistle tends in that direction. God is revealed in grace and righteousness; then there is the great truth of the resurrection of Christ and the gift of the Spirit. So you reach the point that Christ is in the saints, and the instant you reach that you have got the one body. We are all one, because we are partakers of one Spirit. If the love of God is shed abroad in my heart, it is shed abroad in the heart of every saint. In Romans we are looked at very much individually, but all the instruction leads up in this way to the idea of the one body. In chapter 12 the body is spoken of, and in chapter 16 the revelation of the mystery is mentioned.
Now in Corinthians the great idea from the outset is the company. In the beginning of the epistle the apostle says God has called us into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. That is what we have in common. God’s Son Jesus Christ is Lord to us. Then in chapter 10 it is the fellowship of Christ’s death. It is the same fellowship, but there are two sides to it. We do not look on God’s Son as if He were reigning in this world, but as having died to all that is here, and we are in the fellowship of His death. That shuts us off in a way from all that is going on here.
The Lord has not, I doubt, place enough in our hearts. We need to be filled with a sense of the greatness of His glory. There is the revelation of it in John 11 and 12. Chapter 10 brings us to the one flock and one Shepherd, which is almost equivalent [p. 140] to the one body and the Head. Then there is witness given to Christ’s glory as Son of God, Son of David, and Son of man. As Son of God He annuls death and raises man out of it; this was witnessed in the resurrection of Lazarus. As Son of David He secures the sure mercies of David, and as Son of man He is the desire of all nations. Then on the ground of redemption He becomes the gathering point for saints. “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”. The Lord is the bond of fellowship of all saints here upon the earth. What marked off the early saints from the world was that they called on the Lord. They were called to the fellowship of One who had been rejected by the world, but who was light to the saints. They were illuminated with His glory, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians: “We all ... beholding ... the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image”, We are assimilated, and thus become “light in the Lord”. “Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord”, Ephesians 5: 8. All these things are very important for us practically as to the state of our hearts. It is a great thing to be light in the Lord, to rejoice in the Lord, to have the consciousness of the glory which belongs to Him. He has the highest place and the greatest power, for He sits as man at God’s right hand. He is Lord, and He has sent down the Holy Spirit. We are to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
Now having been called to the fellowship of the Lord, the truth of the body is brought in as light to those who were thus gathered. Their ecclesiastical order depended upon the fact that they were called to that fellowship and that the Holy Spirit had constituted those who were in that fellowship the house of God. In the present day, when the church has become corrupt, there is this modification, that we have to follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
[p. 141] Two things are unfolded to the Corinthians as to their privilege, and both these are connected with the Spirit. They were God’s temple and Christ’s body. In the one the Spirit is looked at as on God’s side, and in the other on the side of the saints. It is similar in Romans. In chapter 5 the Spirit acts on God’s side, shedding abroad His love in our hearts. In chapter 8 He is on the believer’s side: the Spirit is life because of righteousness; He is the Spirit of sonship; He helps our infirmities. The Spirit has come here for God, and He has come for the saints. The same Spirit who sheds abroad God’s love in our hearts, enables us to cry, Abba, Father.
Similarly in this epistle: in chapter 3 the Spirit is on God’s side, in chapter 12 on the side of the saints. I do not think the terms “temple” and “house” are equivalent. They were distinguished in Jerusalem. There the temple was properly the building, and the house included all the precincts. In Christianity there is the “spiritual house”, composed of living stones, and there is the house of God made up of Christian profession. What the apostle would teach the Corinthians in speaking of the temple is that in the church all light came from God. Some among them were setting up to be lights, but he shows them by the very fact of the presence of God in the temple that any light from man only tended to defile. The Holy Spirit of God must be the source of all light in the temple of God, and man cannot contribute to it one single bit.
Everything of God and of heaven comes to light by the Spirit. Man knows nothing of heaven nor the glory of Christ. These things are altogether beyond the reach of man. The Spirit has come to report the glory of the Lord, and these things are found in the temple, but it is only in the measure in which a man is spiritual that he enters into them. A great deal may be learned doctrinally which is not reached spiritually.
[p. 142] I admit that we are in the light, but it is another thing for the soul to be filled with the light so that there is no part dark. If we behold the glory of the Lord, and that is really light in the soul, we have no need to recall doctrines in order to be happy, because we are then actually happy in the Lord.
The twelve disciples may be taken as an example: they knew a great deal about what Christ was on earth by their own personal knowledge, but they knew nothing about heaven and the place which He has there. They knew nothing of all that glory which Scripture calls the glory of the Lord. The Spirit came to them and brought to them heavenly light. That was then God’s assembly, for the Spirit of God was there. God dwelt there by the Spirit.
In chapter 12 we come to the other side. The saints are viewed as together. There is no proper convening of the assembly until chapter 11. The Lord’s table in chapter 10 is not a meeting, but fellowship; we are in the fellowship of Christ’s death, and this is a continuous thing. The Lord’s supper is that of which we partake together. It is the beginning of the service in the assembly. The remembrance of the Lord’s death puts us properly in touch with Christ and with one another. All these chapters from 11 to 14 contemplate the assembly as convened, and certain truths are brought in to regulate the conduct of saints there. In this chapter it is the truth of the one Spirit and one body, and in the next we are shown that there is that which is greater than all gift, and that is love, for it is the divine nature.
A man may have all gift, but if he has not love he is as sounding brass; there is no music in the gift. The one who speaks is the vessel of the Spirit, but not a mere vessel, for he himself is to be in it, and his measure in the assembly is love. I do not doubt at all that it is possible that a man may have partaken of the power of the Spirit, and he himself have had no [p. 143] part in it. Very strong language is here used; if a man has not love he is nothing.
The light of the one body is brought in here to regulate the assembly and as a check upon clericalism. I do not think you can get clear of clericalism unless you understand the constitution of the body. The saints are the body of Christ, and being such they are the vessel of the Spirit. Ever since Christ became man His body has been the vessel of the Spirit. Now the church has that place in the world from which Christ has been rejected. It is the vessel of the Spirit: “By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body ... and have been all made to drink into one Spirit”. Then in the end of the chapter it is said that ye are Christ’s body.
The manifestations of the Spirit are in the body. It is not simply gift, for the word of wisdom or of knowledge might come by a person not highly gifted; but they are manifestations of the Spirit, for everything that comes out in the assembly for edification is from one Spirit. They are given for profit, not for self-exaltation or vain display. Now, the practical effect of this is that no one is so great as to be independent of the Spirit. A very strong case is put in taking up the analogy of the human body; the head (which is at the top) cannot say to the feet, I have no need of you. It is what clericalism would be. You might have a man of overpowering gift, who assumes such a place in the assembly as to say to those at the bottom, I have no need of you. Such a man is not in the truth of the body, for if he were he would recognise that the manifestation of the Spirit may be given to one as well as to another, the Spirit distributing to each as He will. I think it refers to the assembly when convened. One who understands the constitution of the assembly will wait on the Lord to see if He will use him in manifestation of the Spirit, but he may be a very insignificant member.
[p. 144] No member is so exalted as that he can be independent of the Spirit, and no one is so small that he cannot be used of Him. In taking up the analogy of the human body the apostle shows that the members we think to be less necessary are indispensable, and we bestow more abundant honour upon them. There may be in the assembly a very uneducated man, and the Spirit uses him. You would not take him to task about his bad grammar, but you would bestow more abundant honour upon him. In human arrangement men go to college for the church. I quite grant that men should go to God’s college, but I do not say that human education is indispensable to the church. Peter and John were perceived to be unlearned men, yet no one can deny that they were the vessels of the Spirit, for they were the first apostles. A man highly gifted of the Spirit would most readily welcome the manifestation of the Spirit through the most insignificant member, though we have to judge that it is a manifestation of the Spirit. However uneducated a man might be, if he were a vessel of the Spirit in the assembly and could speak five words to edification, I would be in sympathy with him and simply anxious that he might be enabled so to express himself that the assembly might get the mind of the Spirit through him.
Clericalism is perfectly suited to men. Many cannot see how we can possibly get on without it, and say, Your meeting must come to utter confusion. It does not come to utter confusion, and it will not, for the truth of the body is that it is the vessel of the Spirit, and the restraint of the Lord will be on those who should not take part, and the Lord’s presence will enable those to act whom He uses to the manifestations of the Spirit. One man alone is not the vessel of the Spirit, though he has part in it. The body of Christ is the vessel of the Spirit, and the apostle could say to the saints locally, “Ye are Christ’s body,
and members in particular”. They had that privilege locally.
Thus we have in this epistle two great thoughts as to the presence of the Spirit. He brings heavenly light into the temple, and the saints are the vessel of the Spirit. Nothing except that which comes by the Spirit is worth anything at all for the edification of the assembly. The saints may be edified by five words, and receive what they could not from the most learned discourse from an appointed minister. If you are in the truth of the body, you will not accept anything which is contrary to it. You will recognise that we are members of Christ, and that the body is for the manifestation of the Spirit. The Spirit is perfectly sovereign and distributes as He will, and therefore even in the present broken state of things we may have edification and blessing in the assembly.