Body Builders (1 Corinthians 12:12–31)

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Doug Van Meter - 18 February 2024

Body Builders (1 Corinthians 12:12–31)

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Ever since the first week of creation, God has been preparing a body in which to dwell and through which to reveal his glory. That body is now the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and each member is gifted by Christ, through his Spirit, to contribute in building it up. The Christian is called to body building. Paul addresses this in our passage under three broad themes: 1. An Immersed Body (vv. 12–13) 2. An Interdependent Body (vv. 14–26) 3. An Intentional Body (vv. 27–31)

Scripture References: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

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From Series: "1 Corinthians Exposition"

An exposition of 1 Corinthians by Doug Van Meter.

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From the first day of creation the Holy Spirit has been busy preparing a body for the triune God.  When God’s breath (the same Hebrew word translated “Spirit”) entered Adam, mankind bore the image of God with the intended purpose of stewarding the presence of God on earth (Genesis 2:15; 1:26–28).

With Adam’s fall, God did not abandon the project. Rather, by his Spirit, God worked in the nation of Israel to “embody” God through the tabernacle and then the temple. Exodus 31:1–11 clearly exposits how the Holy Spirit filled some of God’s people with gifts through which the dwelling place of God would be constructed.

But, of course, the ultimate work of divine embodiment was the incarnation. We are told in Hebrews 10 (quoting Psalm 40) that the Lord had prepared a body for his Son and how, with delight, he took on this body to serve and sacrifice for the Father’s glory and for the good of believing sinners (vv. 5–7). But who “prepared” this body? We don’t need to speculate, for Scripture tells us plainly: “And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?’ And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God’” (Luke 1:34–35). The Holy Spirit used a human being through whom he prepared a body for God (John 1:14; 1 Timothy 3:16).

But was this the end of the Spirit’s “body building” for the Lord? Well, if we have been paying attention to 1 Corinthians, we know the answer to be no. In 3:16, Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit indwelling the church, the new covenant temple of God. Yet we see this even more clearly in the passage before us today.

Here, in vv. 12–31, Paul makes explicit what was perhaps only up until now merely implicit. With v. 12, he skilfully presents his thesis that the church is a body consisting of many members. The church is the body of Christ. It belongs to him and is indwelt by him. This is the penultimate embodiment of God until the consummation of the new creation when Jesus returns in and to glory, a glory in which every believer will share in their glorified bodies (Romans 8:29–30) in the new heaven and new earth.

David Prior helpfully writes in this regard, “Paul is clearly referring here to the way Christ today manifests himself by the Spirit to the world through his church.” Bittlenger comments: “In order to accomplish his work on earth, Jesus had a body made of flesh and blood. In order to accomplish his work today, Jesus has a body that consists of living human beings.”

The Corinthian church needed to embrace this truth, to live it out. So do we. May the Holy Spirit instruct and equip us to engage in Christ-exalting body building. To this end, we will study this passage under these headings:

1. An Immersed Body (vv. 12–13)
2. An Interdependent Body (vv. 14–26)
3. An Incorporated Body (vv. 27–31)

An Immersed Body

First, we must work toward building an immersed body: “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. For in one Spirit we were all baptised into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (vv. 12–13).

The apostle commences this section by likening the church (and I think he is thinking local more than universal) to a body with various members. Like the Trinity, the local church is both diverse and unified. Or, in more theological terms, it is an entity of “distinctions without separation.” It “subsists with variation while being one in essence.”

After stating his thesis—“the body is one and has many members”—we expect him to say, “So it is with the church.” But he says, “So it is with Christ.” He is helping his readers to see the intimate connection between Jesus Christ and his people, the church. He is indicating their union with Christ. How? According to v. 13, Jesus baptises us with and in his Spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ immerses his body—made up of individual believers—into the Holy Spirit.

Tom Schreiner says it this way: “At conversion Jesus Christ plunges believers into the Holy Spirit, so that they are immersed with the Spirit when saved…. At conversion, believers are made to drink of the Spirit: they are drenched in the Spirit.” Therefore, “believers share a common bond in the body of Christ.” And what is done spiritually is signified physically by water baptism.

There is some debate as to whether we should read “by one Spirit” or “in/with one Spirit” the Spirit. The Greek term (en) can be translated in any one of these three ways. But comparing Scripture with Scripture yields the translation “with” or “in” the Spirit. Consider some texts:

• “I baptise you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11).
• “And he preached, saying, ‘After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit’” (Mark 1:7–8).
• “As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, ‘I baptise you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire’” (Luke 3:15–16).
• “And John bore witness: ‘I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptise with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptises with the Holy Spirit”’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (John 1:32–34).
• “And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, ‘you heard from me; for John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’” (Acts 1:4–5).
• “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ​‘John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:15–17).

In each of these cases, it is clearly the Lord Jesus Christ who is the subject and who therefore does the baptising. And this makes complete textual sense, since Jesus told the disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit to them, once he was “glorified” (see John 7:37–39).

Michael Horton writes, “If pressed to identify the two principle gifts of the new covenant, the biblical answer seems clear: the forgiveness of sins and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” According to the apostle John, the Lord Jesus Christ accomplishes both (see John 1:29–34).

Paul is teaching that, when the Holy Spirit regenerates us (effectually calling us), resulting in repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, with God the Father justifying us, Jesus gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit. Just as John the Baptist promised. Jesus baptises his people the “sphere of the Spirit.” He gives us to the Spirit who then gives himself to us. Prior states it plainly, “Jesus is the baptizer; the Holy Spirit is the ‘element’ in which all Christians are baptized.” Therefore, “immersion into the life of the Spirit, with its consequent membership of the body of Christ, is the experience of the new birth, or conversion” (Jackman).

In the book of Acts, several things are inseparably joined in conversion accounts: repentance, faith, confession, and water baptism (immersion). Therefore, Peter could preach on the Day of Pentecost to those convicted of their guilt of Jesus dying for (and by) them: “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). The new covenant assumption is that those regenerated will be subsequently baptised. This baptism both identifies the believer as belonging to Jesus Christ—because she is in Christ—as well as signifying being immersed into the life of the Spirit (see Romans 8:1–11). This is Paul’s meaning here.

In the light of this, apart from the new birth, baptism has no meaning. But because of the new birth, those converted will joyfully be baptised. A Peter implied in Acts 2:38, the truly repentant are keen to be drenched! Or, to put it another way, those who have drunk of the Spirit will happily by dunked by the saints!

Note how Paul is arguing for the unity of the body of Christ. By virtue of Jesus Christ baptising us—“immersing” us into the Holy Spirit—we drink of the one Spirit, whether Jew or Greek, slaves or free. It has been well noted that what may polarise the world does not or should not divide the church. That is, Jesus Christ through the gift of the Holy Spirit creates a unique community, a community of faith. We can think of the word “community” as “fellowshipping in unity” (“communion”).

We can summarise: one Christ, one conversion, one community, with one concern—the exaltation of Jesus Christ as Lord.

This is always an essential principle that every Christian needs to embrace, but it was particularly pertinent to the Corinthian church, which was in danger of either belittling its membership role on the one hand or boasting in it on the other hand. Paul turns to that matter in vv. 14–26.

An Interdependent Body

Second, we must work toward building an interdependent body.

Our Westernised world places a premium on the practice of individualism. And though biblical revelation values the individual, recognising that each person is made purposefully by God (Psalm 139), nevertheless Christianity also stresses the value of the “community of the interdependent.” Sinclair Ferguson writes, “The Spirit does not isolate individuals but rather he creates a new community.” An interdependent one. “God has designed his church to be a community of complementary interdependence, that is, each member brings something to the table that the others need and is enhanced by interdependence” (Stephen Um).

This is precisely Paul’s point in these thirteen verses. In fact, it is largely his point in this large section of chapters 12–14. Diversity in the body is no threat to the unity of the body. Further, there is unity in plurality, but not uniformity.

The real threat to unity is in either minimising or maximising the diversity through either belittling or boasting in one’s diversity. Among other lessons, here we learn that “no member of the body can perform the function of another member” (Morris).

God saves individuals with the purpose of forming them into a corporate community of interconnected and hence interdependent people, each contributing the gifts of the Spirit so that the community grows in Christlikeness. Again, at the risk of being repetitive, the Spirit gives gifts to each individual Christian for the common good (v. 7), which is to confess the lordship of Jesus Christ, to be conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to communicate to the watching world the lordship of Jesus Christ. Therefore, how tragic to either belittle one’s spiritual contribution or that of another, and how equally tragic to boast in one’s spiritual contribution. Paul addresses both of these errors in this passage.

Don’t Belittle the Spirit’s Contribution

Paul warns, in vv. 14–20, against belittling the Spirit’s contribution.

The belittling here seems to be in the mind of the one with a less than “spectacular” spiritual appendage. Since the Corinthian church seemed to have been infatuated with the gift of tongues, assuming those with this gift were the “bees knees,” those with presumed “lesser gifts” would view themselves as inconsequential members at best, irrelevant members at worst. Paul admonishes that neither is the case. The Spirit’s gifts are sovereignly determined, graciously given, and corporately beneficial and hence are not to be despised or belittled. Each is important—even essential—to the spiritual well-being of the church. If any part were not to fulfil its proper role, the whole body would suffer from its absence (Ciampa and Rosner).

In making the point that a body composed of merely one body part is not a body at all (vv. 19–20), Paul seeks to help church members to appreciate that it takes every body part, fulfilling its part, to aid the whole.

Using the body metaphor, he pictures the foot belittling its function saying, “Well, the hand is an important body part. Without hands the body could barely function. When people greet they shake hands, they don’t shake feet! In fact, whoever looks at the feet? No, the hands are where the action is. The hands are extremely important. Whereas I help the body get from Point A to point B, I am also the thing that collects the dust and that requires odour-control inserts in my shoes! I am not valuable.” Paul says, “Stop that!” To quote Sproul, “What’s wrong with your feet? You are a foot by God’s wise, loving, gracious, sovereign, and therefore purposeful design. So, keep on walking!”

The ear is also feeling irrelevant, and so, in a self-belittling exchange, it compares itself with the eye. “Whoever paid attention to an ear? People do not usually walk away from meeting someone saying, ‘Wow, what beautiful ears! Never seen anything like them. I mean, there are ears, and then there are ears!’ Hardly. Ah, but eyes are another matter. People often speak of someone having beautiful eyes.” Again, Paul admonishes reminding the interlocutor that, if the whole body were an eye, there would be no sensory experience of hearing. Likewise, if the entire body were an ear, then there would be no sight. Both are necessary, though one might be more prominent.

The illustration is self-explanatory: Each church member matters. Each church member, having been plunged into the life of the Holy Spirit, emerges with a gift or gifts, which he then uses for the common good of exalting the lordship of Jesus Christ in and through the church. So stop with the inferiority complex. Remember your identity in Christ and maximise your opportunities to serve Christ by serving his church. This local body of Christ is self-mutilated when, through belittlement of gifts, members do nothing. Think about that. Realise the insult it is to the Holy Spirit when you belittle your (his!) contribution. And realise the injury you inflict upon this church as well.

We should pause and consider the popular exhortations to “discover your gift.” I am not sure that this is helpful. When the Spirit of God came upon the first new covenant gathering of the church, no one was seeking to “discover” their gift. Rather, the Spirit of God came upon the 120 and they began to speak in foreign languages previously unknown to them. After all, it was a gift, not a treasure hunt. I think the same principle applies to believers in our day. As we obediently wait upon the Lord (Acts 1:4–5; 2:1ff) alongside one another, the Spirit gives to us what the body of Christ needs. For this reason, I am not persuaded that the Spirit of God distributes gifts that are necessarily “lifelong.” His gifts may be for a particular season in the life of a church. As he sees a need, he gives what is required to meet that need. The one area of gifts that might be long-term are those related to a particular office in the church (apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher, evangelist). Nevertheless, when we spend our energies and efforts trying to discover our gifts, we may be missing the point, which is to serve the body in accordance with the opportunity God sovereignly gives. When each of us does this the body experiences the “common good.” Therefore, “just do it!” Write that note. Sing that song. Encourage that sister. Teach that lesson. Give that money. Show that hospitality. Be that listening ear. Move your feet to go and greet that brother. Speak that word of admonition. Pray with that burdened church member. Tell your co-worker, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” Serve that cup of coffee. I trust you get the point.

​Don’t Boast in Your Contribution

Not only does Paul caution against belittling our Spirit-driven contribution to the body (vv. 14–20), but he also admonishes Christians not to boast in what the Spirit has graciously given to them as a means to build up the body:

The Spirit gives in order to build up the church, not to puff up the Christian. If we boast in our gift to the church, we consequently belittle the Spirit’s other gifts to the church. That is dangerous (Matthew 18:10–14; 1 Corinthians 11:27–32).

This passage addresses the sinful attitude of prideful indispensability, which is coupled with the sinful attitude of dismissive dispensability. This is illustrated by the eye saying to the hand, “Get away. I can handle this. I don’t need you. You might be more prominent than the foot, but you are not nearly as important as I am.” Or in the case of the head saying to the foot< “You are way down there and I am way up here. I am loftier than you. Without me the body is useless while without you the body is merely hindered.” Such boasting is ugly, demeaning, ungodly, divisive.

Paul counters this ugly arrogance with the observation that those parts of the physical body that are less noticeable because less presentable are equally valuable—so much so that they are both carefully protected and modestly covered.

Think of the kidney, liver, or pancreas. You can live without a hand, ear, or eye. But try to live without those organs. The genitals are vital to the body, and we treat them with modesty, which means we do not draw attention to them. (Only perversity does.)

The point, when it comes to the church, is that just because the Spirit’s contribution in a church member is more visible than another does not minimise the Spirit’s contribution through a less noticeable gift to a church member.

Therefore, stop the boasting. Remember from whence the gift comes: God’s Holy Spirit. Remember the purpose of the gift: the common good. This will drive a necessary stake into the heart of sinful spiritual pride.

A most helpful observation arising from this passage regards how we should treat the less “prominent” gifted ones. “If there is to be any overcompensation, it is to be for the less favoured. The church is not to be like its surrounding society, which always honours those who are already honoured. It is to be counter-cultural and bestow the greatest honor on those who seem to be negligible” (Ciampa and Rosner).

In vv. 25–26 Paul concludes by saying that, as each church member functions and contributes to the body—in accordance with the Spirit’s gift and therefore empowerment—the church will be unified, in heart and soul. The “common good” will include communal compassion and communal celebration, which is a marvellous testimony to the presence and power of the Spirit of God. Togetherness, not tongues, is the great witness that Jesus Christ is Lord (John 13:34–35; Acts 2:42–47).

Listen to the Holy Spirit when he moves you to attend a funeral, a wedding, a baby shower. Listen to the Holy Spirit when he moves you to send that message or to make that phone call. If our boast is in the Lord, there will be no belittlement of one another. Rather, we will find a church membership committed to Christlike body building.

An Incorporated Body

Finally, we must work toward building an incorporated body:

I struggled with assigning a heading to this final passage. There are several options.

First, I could have called this “An Integrated Body” because, as he lists several gifts, Paul makes the point that the one body is made up of individual members, each with his or her own Spirit-apportioned and empowered gift. This, of course, is a major theme in chapter 12.

Second, I considered the heading “An Intentional Body” because it is clear from what Paul writes that God has an intended purpose for the order in which he lists these gifts and, most importantly, his intention is that the church be intentional about proclaiming God’s word.

Third, I could have focused on “An Instructed Body” because Paul is giving final instructions about the priority and implied ultimate point of the gifts: proclaiming the word of God.

I chose “An Incorporated Body” because it combines all of these points. Jesus Christ is embodied in his church for the purpose of intentionally function as an integrated community to exalt his lordship.

I hold the view that Paul is prioritising the gifts. (And note that gospel-preaching gifts are frontloaded with the gift of tongues coming at the end!) Paul’s admonition—“but earnestly desire the higher gifts”—points to the priority of gospel proclamation. Paul is not saying the other gifts are irrelevant. He is not encouraging boasting on behalf of gifted teachers. Instead, he is saying that, apart from gospel proclamation, spiritual gifts will never adequately build the body of Christ. He is saying that the “greatest” gifts are not those that minister to status or self, but those that serve the good of others and build the community (Thiselton). And Jackman emphasises, “The ‘ranking’ has nothing do with the individual that God has chosen to be the channel of his grace, but everything to do with the gift’s effectiveness in building up the body of Christ (14:1–3).”

We learn from this that Christ-centred, cross-centred preaching takes precedence over any other thing about a local church. An intelligent church will grasp this. The teaching and preaching of God’s word is vital to the building of the body of Christ. The “pulpit ministry” must be prioritised. When any other ministry begins to eclipse the preaching of God’s word, the church will weaken.

All the gifts and each of the gifted matter. And together the church is strengthened to effectually proclaim the gospel of God.

As we close, we must not assume anything, including that everyone reading this is confessing “Jesus is Lord.” You should not be concerned about spiritual gifts until you are first converted by the gift of the Spirit—the gift of the new birth.

Do you know Jesus Christ only according to the flesh; that is, as a mere man? You need to know him as the Son of God, as the God-Man who lived a sinless life in order to die for sinful people, taking the judgement they deserved from God upon himself. You must believe that he rose from the dead to save sinners like you and me. If you don’t believe this—if you have not repented of your sins, trusting Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life—then plead with God today to give you a new heart. This is what God’s Holy Spirit does. He delights to do so. Ask, seek, knock, and the door of salvation will be opened to you.

But this is not the end of the matter. For a church to steward well its Spirit-given gift of gospel proclamation, it also needs the Spirit’s graces. This is the more excellent way Paul will expound as he continues his teaching on body building.

AMEN