February 23, 2025|Spiritual Unity|1 Corinthians 12:12-27
John-Daniel Cutler
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Our topic this morning is a continuation of Paul’s discussion on spiritual gifts, particularly the last division we looked at on Sunday under the statement 'THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH IS SUBJECT TO DIVINE WILL.'
Last week we emphasized the divine will behind the gifts.
There are varieties of gifts, service, and activities, but the same Spirit, Lord, and God who not only empowers them all, but apportions them to each one as he wills.
We looked at the source of, scope of, purpose of, and kinds of Spiritual gifts.
But in addition to all of that, there is a theme of unity running throughout verses 4-11. All the spiritual gifts are united in their source and their purpose, and all those who exercise those gifts are united in the Spirit who empowers them. Paul is going to highlight that unity by using an extended metaphor in our passage today that helps us understand not just spiritual gifts but the unity of God’s people that should be evident in all the things we do. Of course, particularly, Paul does have in mind addressing the disunity that has come from a misunderstanding and the abuses of the spiritual gifts, but this really applies to the totality of our life together.
One of the things that is beneficial for us going verse by verse through books of the Bible expositionally, is that it helps us keep the greater context in view when we look at a particular set of scriptures. Sometimes its easy to pluck a scripture out of context, which can lead to misunderstanding and misapplication.
For instance, Marcus and I were talking on Wednesday about 1 Corinthians 13. We are so used to hearing these well known verses read at weddings that we can forget that the context of 1 Corinthians 13, often called the love chapter, is not marriage, but rather life in the church and even more specifically in the exercising of spiritual gifts within the church.
Does that mean that Paul’s teachings on love in chapter 13 are not beneficial to us in terms of how we treat our spouses, of course not, but it does mean that if we only apply it there, we have missed the primary application and reason it is included in God’s word. So keeping the context in view is important, amen?
With that in mind, if we think back over the letter Paul has written so far, unity has been at the forefront of Paul’s message throughout the letter.I think it will be helpful for us to back up and look at what Paul has said so far before we jump in today.
You can follow along in 1 Corinthians if you would like, we’ll start in chapter 1, verse 1.
1 Corinthians 1:1–3 “1 Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Corinthians 1:9 “9 God is faithful, by whom you (plural) were called into the fellowship (singular) of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:10 “10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” 1 Corinthians 1:12–13 “12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”
1 Corinthians 3:16 “16 Do you not know that you (plural) are God’s temple (singular) and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”
1 Corinthians 8:6 “6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom (singular) are all things and through whom we (plural) exist.”
1 Corinthians 10:16–17 “16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”
1 Corinthians 11:33 “33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another—”
Paul begins his letter with a heavy emphasis on the unity of the church and then periodically comments on it throughout the letter, I think in many ways culminating in our passage today. Where Paul is going to use a metaphor to describe the unity we have. As we think through our spiritual unity this morning, I want to show you three areas Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 with this metaphor.
Three areas Paul addresses with this metaphor that we want to look at this morning. The first and foundational area is…
I. THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
Paul uses a number of metaphors to describe the church in the letter to the Corinthians, all teaching us something about our relationship to both God and one another. He calls the people of God, God’s field, God’s building, God’s temple, and of course, the one we are focused on today, a body.
The imagery of the body is not first introduced in our text today, but as we saw in chapter 10, Paul says ‘we who are many are one body’, but it is not until chapter 12 that Paul begins to flesh out, pun intended, what it means to be a body and not just any body, but the body of Christ. Let’s read verses 12 through 14 together this morning.
1 Corinthians 12:12–14 (ESV)
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
Paul’s metaphor is not hard to understand, he compares the physical body to the spiritual body of Christ. He appeals to something we understand and than applies it to something he wants us to understand. Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body. The body is made up of many members, both in terms of its external makeup and its internal function, and yet we think of it as a singular cohesive unit.
The interesting thing to note is that where we might expect Paul to say, “and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with the church”, Paul says, “so it is with Christ.”
I think Paul wants us to keep our understanding of unity firmly rooted in the fact that it is our connection to Christ and Christ alone that unites us as one body in Christ and of Christ. Apart from Christ, there is no spiritual unity. This is important for our understanding of what the church is and who belongs to it. No matter what other things we share in common with a group of people, when it comes to the church, what makes us members of the church (that is what we often refer to as the universal church or the invisible church) is whether or not we are in Christ.
Paul’s uses the word body to refer both to the physical body of man and the spiritual body of Christ, so how are we brought into this spiritual body?
Verse 13- for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…and all were made to drink of one Spirit. In short, it is the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit that brings us into the body of Christ.
No one can say they are in the body of Christ based on any merit they possess or any work that they have done. You cannot be born into the body by way of a religious family, religious upbringing, or religious duty. This is an essential element of our unity, we all owe the work of the Holy Spirit to our position in the body. There is no one that can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV) 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
No one can say they are in the body of Christ based on any merit they possess or any work that they have done.
Notice what Paul says in his parenthetical between the two descriptions of the Spirits work in verse 13. Jew or Greek, slaves or free. Something he expounds on in Galatians 3:27-28 (ESV) 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Nationality, economic status, or gender are neither helps nor hinderances to the Spirit’s regenerative work in salvation. Why does Paul take this opportunity to highlight some of these distinctives in the conversation of the one body and the entrance into it?
There is no division in the body, no classes of Christians, no standing within the body based on external factors. Look at how many times Paul uses the word one to emphasize this reality. 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. Paul uses two images to describe the work of the Holy Spirit, being baptized and drinking.
We have talked about this before, but the word baptized is a transliteration from the greek word baptizō (bap-tid'-zo). Transliteration is the process of converting written text from one alphabet to another while preserving pronunciation. It's different from translation, which conveys the meaning of a word in another language. Rather than translating the word into its English equivalent, the translators chose to transliterate the text to baptism, with the past tense here being baptized. The greek word means to immerse or submerge and can carry the idea of washing or cleansing by immersion. Paul says in one Spirit we were all immersed into one body.
The other word Paul uses to describe the work of the Spirit is we were made to drink of one Spirit. Using one word that describes an external washing and another that describes an internal application, I think Paul highlights that the work of the Spirit is both cleansing and transformative. I also don’t think it is too off base to picture the two ordinances here. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, especially since Paul has already talked about drinking the cup of the supper as a participation in Christ. Christ gave us external ordinances to picture internal realities. When someone stands in the baptistry and is immersed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is not the water baptism that is the focus, it is the spiritual reality of being baptized into Christ by the Spirit that is pictured. In the same way, when we drink the cup of the Lord’s Supper and eat the bread, it is not the elements that are the focus, but rather the spiritual reality of participating in the spiritual benefits and blessings of our union with Christ, the source and substance of our lives. These corporate ordinances are reminders and pictures of our unity in Christ wrought in us by the work of the Holy Spirit.
I think Paul begins here because if we don’t understand our unity in the terms of the work of the Holy Spirit then our expression of unity in the body can be greatly affected. If this is not the foundation or our unity, then we will never experience the true unity that is ours in Christ as members of his body. The Corinthians were dividing over the gifts of the Spirit, not realizing that they were betraying the very same Spirit by denying the unity that he brings in the lives of all believers.
When you think of the church, do you think about it in terms of an organization or an organism? Something you participate in or something you belong to?
The American church desperately needs to hear these words from Paul. There is an epidemic of superficial unity based on preferences and personalities resulting in hopping from one local body to another without realizing the unity in Christ we are betraying. Are there legitimate times to leave one body for another, of course there are, but the great majority of reasons that people hop from church to church is not theological or even spiritual, but fleshly and divisive. Lest we think this is a modern problem, this is exactly the situation Paul is addressing in Corinth.
They were dividing over which teacher they liked better, what philosophies they held, their economic status, their understanding of marriage, food offered to idols, and their spiritual gifts. It is to this divided group of believers that Paul says, you don’t understand, you are one in Christ. All of you are various members of one body, and you are not acting like it. Remember the body does not consist of one member, but of many. After stressing the unity of the body, of the church, Paul is going to address two areas of how this unity of one body, many members, is expressed in the church. The fist is….
II. THE UNITY OF DIVERSITY.
Paul reminds us that unity not uniformity is what he is talking about. We are not all the same, we do not all have the same gifts, we do not all have the same function in the body. But not only is that not a reason to be divided, it is further reason for us to operate practically out of our positional unity in Christ. Let’s pick up with verse 15.
1 Corinthians 12:15–20 (ESV)
15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
I thought about titling this section the ‘foolishness of self-doubt’ because Paul, takes on a sarcastic rhetorical tone in this section that I think shows how foolish he thought the Corinthians were acting. Look at his argument. In in the human body, if each individual member could exercise thought and intention, one member would decided that since it is not like another, it did not belong to the body.
If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body”. Marcus, I thought about you and the piano when I was thinking about this. When you play the piano, we all acknowledge that you have talented hands. Those same keys in my hands would not produce a very pleasant sound. But how often do we ignore the fact of how important the use of your feet is to playing the piano. It is both your hands and your feet doing what they are supposed to do that makes the beautiful sound from a piano.
Now imagine how ludicrous the situation is that Paul paints here. If you’re foot should decided that because it is not a hand it is not part of the body. That would not make it any less a part of the body. Notice what Paul says, as it applies to the body of Christ. A denial of your place in the body or a withdrawal from the body doesn’t remove you from the body anymore than a foot that doesn’t work means it is not part of the body.
Paul goes on, “if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body.” Paul’s point is that the diversity of the body is not a sign that the different parts do not belong to the body, but it is that very diversity where the beauty of unity is found. It is the foot and the hand, the ear and the eye all working together, doing their specific tasks that makes the body, the body.
Imagine the Corinthian brother or sister seeing all of these impressive spiritual gifts being exercised, prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpretation, healing, and they don’t have any of these flashy gifts, and concluding that they didn’t belong to the body, maybe even withdrawing from the body, or simply stop contributing and letting those with the “impressive” gifts to serve the body.
Paul wants the Corinthians to understand how foolish that would be.
However, Paul is not done, not only is it foolish to think that just because you are not like other parts of the body, what kind of body would that even be? Paul gives us two horrific pictures to think about. If the whole body were an eye, (I don’t know if Paul is picturing one giant eyeball or a body full of eyeballs, either way, the result is equally both comical and scary). In that case, you may see very well but you couldn’t hear anything. Again, if the whole body were an ear, you may hear very well, but you wouldn’t have a sense of smell. Come on, Paul says, uniformity in the body wouldn’t make sense, and it doesn’t make sense in the body of Christ either.
We need eyes to see, ears to hear, noses to smell, all of these body parts and their individual senses come together to allow us to process the input of the world in meaningful ways. It is the unity of all of these diversity that makes the body the body, and that is no evolutionary accident.
Paul says, thank God it is not that way, because God arranged the members in the body, some of them? No, each one of them.
Haphazardly, randomly? No, as he chose.
God has placed, or established each part of the body according to his design for the body.
If he didn’t, if it was all just a single member, where would the body be? Could you call that a body? Of course not, as it is, Paul says, and repeats the emphasis of this section, there are many parts, yet one body.
What is Paul’s point as it pertains to the spiritual body? We need diversity if we are going to be what God has designed us to be. Without it, the body will not function the way it is supposed to.
Where does this self-doubt in the body come from? I think it comes from discontent, discouragement, or doubtfulness. Discontent that what God has equipped and called you to do is not either what you think you should be doing, or not as important as so and so’s gift and function. Maybe it is because in many of the churches today, we have turned the platform into a stage and worship into a performance. Which leads us to effectively establish two classes of Christians, similar to clergy and laity. You have people who do the work of ministry and people who watch and are ministered to. Which I think often leads to a distorted view of what the body is. We can be tempted to think if we aren’t using our gifts in an obvious way in the public gathering of the church on Sundays, we are somehow not an important part of the body.
Friends, that couldn’t be further from the truth. No one part of the body is more important than the other and we need all of you exercising your gifts in the particular way God has called you to minister to the body for the body to be as healthy as it can. My role and function in the church is no more important than the nursery worker with the gifts of service ministering to our body right now. I have personally seen the gift of hospitality prepare someone to hear the preaching of the word. Let’s say God uses what is proclaimed in this time together to eternally impact someone’s life. Who is responsible for that, what part of the body gets the credit?
Was it the person with the gift of service that made sure there was breakfast so the overworked mom could check one thing off of her sunday morning to do list? Was it the person with the gift of hospitality that welcomed a weary and burdened visitor in, making them feel seen and welcome? Was it the person with the gift of administration that organized our service and made sure everything ran smoothly? Was it the person with the gift of leadership that led the music in such a way that someone was drawn to the truth of God that we sang together? Was it the person with the gift of evangelism that visited them during the week and invited them to join us on Sunday? We could go on and on. The point is, God gets the credit but he uses every part of the body in ways we cannot even fathom.
No one part of the body is more important than the other and we need all of you exercising your gifts in the particular way God has called you to minister to the body for the body to be as healthy as it can.
Many parts, one body. Our unity does not come from the fact that we all have the same gift, that we all have the same function, that we all even express a particular gift in the same way, the unity of the body comes through the diversity of it. A diversity that God not only designed but arranged in the body, as he chose.
Whether it is discontent, or discouragement, or even doubting whether you have a place in the body, all of this leads to a self-doubt that completely disregards that God has purposely designed the body to be unified through diversity. The third and last area we are going to look at is very similar, but Paul argues it from the other side. Let’s look at…
III. THE UNITY OF DEPENDENCY.
Here Paul moves to the ridiculous position that one part of the body does not need all the other parts. Let’s pick up in verse 21.
1 Corinthians 12:21–26 (ESV)
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
You see how Paul switches from a member of the body doubting whether they belong to the body or not because they are not fill in the blank, like someone else, to the member who thinks too highly of his or her position in the body of Christ.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you” In the same way, I almost titled this section the foolishness of self-regard. As foolish as it is for one part of the body to say that they are not part of the body, it is equally foolish for one part of the body to pretend like they do not need the other parts. nor again, the head cannot say to the feet, “I have no need of you”.
This is how Christians can miss the forest for the trees. “I just want a church that is more missional” or “I just want a church that is more evangelistic” or “I just want a church that is more…”
Friends, if you have a heart and passion for missions, we need you to walk that out here. If you have a heart for evangelism, we need you to walk that out here, if you have a heart for serving the less fortunate, the community, kids, homeless, imprisoned, God is not calling you to find a bunch of other people exactly like you, he is calling you to use that particular gift within the body he has placed you. We need people who are deep theological scholars, we need people who are extremely practical servants, and everything in between for the body to function like it should. We are all dependent on one another. We need people who call us, as a body, to think deeply and act practically in order to reach the world with the message of the gospel, to make disciples who make disciples.
We need people who call us, as a body, to think deeply and act practically in order to reach the world with the message of the gospel, to make disciples who make disciples.
There is no room in the body for disdain towards someone with a different gifting or function, these is no room in the body for thinking others are dispensable, and there is certainly no room in the body for demeaning one another based on what God has assigned us to. This is foolishness, which Paul goes on to highlight by continuing his metaphor of the human body.
One the contrary, that is to the idea of any one part thinking it does not need another part, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. You know the eye, compared to say an arm is pretty weak, but life would be much more difficult if we could not see. The nose, the ears, all pretty weak by comparison. Not too mention things like blood vessels, intestines, or organs. They are not pretty, they are not necessarily strong, but without them the body could not function.
The parts of the body we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor. A popular commentary, Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown illustrates this principle by talking about feet. If we think about parts of our body that are less honorable, then feet probably make it pretty high on the list, and yet, how much of your life have you spent providing for and caring for your feet, how much money have we spend on socks and shoes, honoring this less honorable part? Paul goes on to discuss our unpresentable parts and how they are treated with greater modesty. Since Paul references modesty here, I think we probably all understand which parts he is talking about, so we don’t need to get too specific here. Paul’s point is we take care and thought to honoring and covering the parts of our body that might seem weaker or unpresentable, a care we do not have to show the parts that do not need it.
Here is one application from Paul’s argument. If you didn’t care for your feet, your whole body would be affected, if you didn’t treat some parts of your body with modesty, your whole body would be shamed. Paul is arguing that in the way we treat our bodies, we see it as a whole, with no division. In the same way, we should not look at the various parts of the spiritual body and determine that because they are not all alike, we do not need to care for the various different parts, rather the mutual dependency of the body ought to lead us to have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together, if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
If you don’t believe what happens to one member affects the whole body, think about the last time you stubbed your toe, right? All of a sudden that little guy is the most important part of your body. If one part of our body is suffering, it ought to be felt throughout the entire body. If one part of our body is honored, it ought to send joy throughout the body.
Why is that not the normative way a local body works today? Because we are too independent for our own good. We have bought into the lie that we do not need one another, to the rugged individualism picture of the American dream where I pull myself up by my bootstraps. So we function day to day, Sunday to Sunday without any real concern for the body we belong to. Or worse we group up with a few others like us in a Sunday school class and we take what should be a beautiful expression of dependence on the totality of the body and confine it to us four and no more.
We all need one another, we are mutually interdependent on one another to reach the maturity that God has called us to as followers of Christ. No one member is a body unto themselves. That is the unity of dependence we see in the physical body and one that Paul wants us to understand in the spiritual body.
We have bought into the lie that we do not need one another, to the rugged individualism picture of the American dream where I pull myself up by my bootstraps.
As we close, let us turn to our final verse this morning. 1 Corinthians 12:27.
1 Corinthians 12:27 (ESV)
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Now you (plural) are the body (singular) of Christ and individually (singular) members (plural) of it.
All of you that are a part of Emmanuel Baptist Church from the local expression of the body of Christ, and each one of you are members of it together with one another. We understand the body of Christ is composed of all Christians from all times and all places, but the local body should reflect that universal truth by its unity with one another.
Expressed not in uniformity, but in the diversity and dependence of the body that God has gathered and is gathering in this place. If you have never seen yourself as part of the whole, then I pray Paul’s words will remind you that we have all been baptized into one body. If you have struggled with discontent, discouragement, or doubtfulness concerning your place in the body, I pray that Paul’s words will remind you that every part of the body matters. If you have struggled with disdain towards others in the body, or in any way demeaned them or treated them as dispensable, may Paul’s words remind you that every part depends on the rest.
If you are not serving the body, not only are you doing a disservice to the body, but you are dishonoring God. He has designed you and placed you exactly where he wants you to be to do what only you can do in and for the body, for his glory and your good.
Church father, John Chrysostom writes this “God has placed each part of the body where he has chosen, so we must not inquire any further as to why he has done it the way he has. For even if we could come up with ten thousand explanations, we would never find one better than this—that it pleased the Creator to make it the way he chose.”
May we heed Paul’s words and chase after the calling that pleased God to give us. Let us pray.