Calvary Road Baptist Church
“THE BODY OF CHRIST:
Metaphor Not Myth” Part 4
Let me quickly prepare you for this great chapter by taking you to Ephesians 4.5, where the Apostle Paul, near the end of his life and while imprisoned in Rome, wrote these words to the Ephesian congregation:
“One Lord, one faith, one baptism,”
Be sure to satisfy yourself that the context in which this verse is placed does not alter its obvious meaning. There is only one Lord, the Savior. There is only one faith, the Christian faith, the faith once delivered to the saints, Jude 3. Therefore, there is also one baptism.
Two comments are in order here. First, the phrase asserts three different individual kinds. The number of Lords is one. The number of faiths is one. And the number of baptisms is one. This is not complex. But, second, this was not always true. From the Day of Pentecost until sometime in the future there were two baptisms. There was baptism by immersion in water and baptism in the Spirit by the Lord Jesus. On the Day of Pentecost 120 were baptized in the Spirit and following Peter’s sermon some 3,000 were baptized by immersion in water.
On the Day of Pentecost there were two baptisms, Spirit baptism and baptism by immersion in water. One was metaphorical and one was literal. One you were immersed in the Holy Spirit, the other you got wet. However, by the time Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians one of the baptisms had ceased to be administered. You say, “How do you know that?” The question is which baptism was no longer administered, baptism in the Spirit by the Lord Jesus or water baptism? Because by the time Paul wrote Ephesians 4.5 there was only one. There had been two baptisms.
Originally there was none. And then there was one, when John the Baptist baptized by immersion in the Jordan River. And then there were two, Spirit baptism and baptism by immersion in water. Then there was one, again. The question is which one was still in existence when the Apostle Paul wrote Ephesians 4.5?
To insist that Spirit baptism is a thing in our day must require that baptism by immersion is no longer a thing, and has not been a thing since sometime before Paul wrote Ephesians. You say, “How do you know that?” Because there is only one baptism. There isn’t two, there is one. There used to be none. Then there was one. Then there were two. And now there is one, again. Which one?
If it is Spirit baptism, as the Protestants, and the Charismatics, and the Pentecostals insist, then there ain’t no water baptism, because there is only one. Here is how they get around it. Theologians will say, “Water baptism is symbolic.” Actually, no, it is not! Water baptism is literal, because you actually get wet. You don’t symbolically get wet, you actually get wet! What is actual is literal! You follow?
I reject the notion that we currently have Spirit baptism and that water baptism is no longer a thing. I am persuaded the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ is still operative, which includes the Church ordinance of believer baptism by immersion in water.
Remember, the Great Commission is “Go,” Baptize,” and “Teach,” with that second, baptize, being immersion in water. Ergo, baptism in the Spirit, what we refer to as Spirit baptism, is not a thing and has not been a thing since before Paul wrote Ephesians. It has not been a thing for two thousand years! It is not a thing!
We now turn to chapter 4 of Charles Hunt’s book.
Chapter IV
IN THE METAPHORICAL BODY OF CHRIST
BY SANCTIFICATION
Introduction
In the previous chapter we saw that being placed “in Christ” is God’s work of grace in salvation uniting us to Christ with the evidential reality of the Spirit of Christ indwelling us. It is the misunderstanding of the head-body metaphor that diminishes the glory of this “in Christ” reality to a supposed work of the Holy Spirit baptizing us into some mystical body of Christ. I believe he is right when he points out that this diminishes the glory of being in Christ. In this chapter we want to show what the body of Christ is and how one is placed in it.
A Misunderstanding of 1 Corinthians 12:13
Many commentators believe that I Corinthians 12:13 is teaching that at conversion the Holy Spirit baptizes the believer into the mystical body of Christ of which Christ is the head; however, the context of First Corinthians chapter 12 shows that the subject here is sanctification and participation in the salvation that a believer in Christ has already received. The body into which these Corinthians were baptized was a body that would have no existence if they, as members, were not constituted thus. There has never been nor is there today any cosmic body of Christ which has a transcendent reality beyond the body at Corinth. The context is clear that the Corinthians’ assembly is portrayed as a metaphorical body complete with its own head which is said not to be any more necessary than any other members of the body. First Corinthians 12:21 states that “the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” Can this possibly be referring to the Lord Jesus Christ? No. Likewise, “ye are the [lit. “a”] body of Christ and members in particular” (1 Cor. 12:27). This body with its own head and other members constitutes the church at Corinth, the visible assembly. Therefore, to be placed into the “body of Christ” as set forth in Paul’s epistles is a metaphor that pictures a codependency. The question to be asked is if there is ever a legitimate example in God’s Word portraying the Lord Jesus Christ in a codependent relationship with believers? The answer must be “No!” The head cannot say to the foot, “I have no need of you.” If this relationship with fellow members in the body is pressed as a salvational relationship, then our salvation depends as much on our fellow members in the body as it does on Jesus Christ Himself. Of course, this is impossible.
Robert Gundry, born in 1932,
is an American scholar, commentary writer,
and retired professor of New Testament studies and Koine Greek,
who for a time worked under the late F. F. Bruce
and for many years taught at Westmont College in Santa Barbara.
Having written an entire volume on the subject of the Biblical meaning of the Greek word soma, which is the Greek word for body, Robert Gundry is in complete agreement with this conclusion. After describing Bultmann’s faulty view that Christ constitutes the body in some mystical or supramundane way, the universal invisible body, instead of Christians constituting the body, he then replies,
A chief difficulty here lies in the failure of Paul to stress, or even to mention, the temporal priority of the Body of Christ over Christians, or its transcendence above the earthly church. In fact, Paul’s comments point the other way. For all we can see, the Body of Christ has no existence apart from the historical church on earth. Bultmann appeals to I Corinthians 12:12-13: ‘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 by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.’ However, these verses themselves contain a refutation of the temporal priority and transcendence of Christ’s Body. For Paul here indicates that the Body has many members. Without them it would not be a body. Yet these members are Christians as the following verses set out in great detail and as verse 27 categorically states: ‘Now you (emphatic hymeis) the Corinthian congregation are the body of Christ and individually members of it.’ Ergo, Christ is the Body only insofar as he has members, viz., Christians united to him through the operation of the Spirit. There is no supramundane body, which is to say there is no universal invisible body of Christ. There is no universal invisible body of Christ.
Gundry goes on to say further in the chapter that:
In one sense the ecclesiastical Body is just as physical as the individual body of Christ, not because it consists in the individual body of Christ but because it consists of believers whose bodies (as well as spirits) belong to Christ (I Cor. 6:15, 19-20). In a larger sense, however, the ecclesiastical Body is metaphorical in that the equation of one member with the eye of the Body, another member with the ear, and so on can be understood (but is easily understood) only in a figurative way.
Gundry is not alone in his conclusion. Yorke also, upon careful exegesis, comes to the same conclusion. These two authors agree that the body into which the Corinthians were baptized was the local church of Corinth which is pictured metaphorically as a complete body. It should be noted that both men still recognize the Holy Spirit’s baptism as being involved. What they both deny is that the Holy Spirit baptizes them into the universal invisible body of Christ. They see no Scriptural warrant for the belief in a mystical body of Christ.
The Importance of Church Membership
Our spiritual union with Jesus Christ takes place at salvation by a sovereign act of God and the creative work of the Holy Spirit producing repentance and faith in the hearts of the elect. The metaphor of believers being placed in the body of Christ does not teach this truth, as Protestants wrongly assert, but rather displays another wonderful truth. Being placed in Christ begins an activity of sanctification which directs the believer to join a body of Christ. This is an aspect of sanctification that cannot be attained by the believer in isolation. You cannot do this alone. It is the sanctification advanced by the process of a group of believers growing together in a unity created by God, the right use of means. The Trinity is involved in constituting such an organized group of saints for this purpose. The fullness of spiritual gifts resident within Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry are bestowed by the glorified Lord Jesus Christ through the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. Christ gives a measure to each saint out of the fullness of His gifts. The Holy Spirit endows each believer with this gift, and God places him in a particular assembly. This organized assembly is pictured as a human body in which each member possesses one or more unique gifts. Together they function as one body in Christ. The process of coming out of the world and into the church is spoken of as being set in the body. Since this organized assembly is Jesus Christ’s by possession through the redemption by His blood and since they possess in unity the diverse gifts of Jesus Christ, it is called the body of Christ.
Jesus
Jesus was given the Spirit without measure (John 3:34). Consequently He possessed every gift of the Spirit in His own body. Isaiah 11:1-5 prophetically speaks of Jesus possessing the sevenfold fullness of all spiritual gifts. The gospels record Jesus exercising this fullness of spiritual gifts. No one individual can manifest every gift of the Spirit. These gifts are given severally to individual believers whom God sets in each local assembly to manifest in each particular assembly the fullness of the gifts of Christ. Only in the unity of a New Testament Church, which is His body, can Jesus manifest His completeness. Ephesians 4:7 teaches that each individual is given a gift which is only a measure of the complete gifts Christ sovereignly possesses as the exalted Messiah. Ephesians 4:7-16 teaches that only in a body, a local church, can the fullness of Christ be manifested. In the unity of a body, as God has added and set each member (Acts 2:47 and 1 Cor. 12:18), each member exercises his measure of the gift of Christ by the Holy Spirit and together in the unity of the body the fullness of Christ’s gifts are manifested. Being a member of a church is a very serious matter, with profound implications.
A Glorious Truth
It is interesting to note that individual churches are represented by a golden lampstand in the book of Revelation but not individual believers. The essence of what makes a group of believers a church as opposed to just being a group of believers is revealed by understanding the meaning of the golden lampstand. This fullness of Christ’s gifts as given by Him, empowered by the Spirit, and set in place by God is the essence of the body of Christ. This beautiful truth is taught in Ephesians 1:23:
“Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”
Here a glorious truth is revealed. The fullness of Christ, the one who fills the complete purpose of God in redemption, who gathers all things in heaven and in earth in Himself, even this one in whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily, and who in the days of his flesh received the Spirit without measure, manifests His fullness (i.e., His gifts) in His body (a particular local assembly).
First Corinthians 12.4-7
First Corinthians 12:4-7 teaches that there is diversity of gifts, administrations, and operations, but it is the one triune God who is working all in all:
“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.
And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God
which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit
is given to every man to profit withal.”
The manifestation of the Spirit is for the profit of all. Your gift is not for you. You gift is for us. Every member in the church of Corinth exercised a gift or gifts and together as a complete body they were designed to reveal Christ. They were to display the fullness of Christ’s gifts. This is what was in Paul’s mind when he asked them in 1 Corinthians 1:13a, “Is Christ divided?” The purpose of the gifts of the Spirit is neither to exalt the Holy Spirit nor the individual but to exalt Jesus Christ. He possessed and exercised the diversity of the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the unity of His human existence.
Ephesians 5.18
This truth pervades the New Testament. In Ephesians 5:18 we are commanded to be filled with the Spirit:
“And be not drunk with wine,
wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.”
I have often wondered why people pray and ask God to fill they with His Spirit, when He has commanded them to be filled with the Spirit. If God commands you to do something, don’t ask God to do it. He commanded you to do it, so do it! The Holy Spirit’s work is to manifest Christ, and you must be joined to Christ’s body to do that fully. To do His work the Holy Spirit must lead us to an assembly (a body). Do you see how wildlly out of God’s will someone is who professes to be a Christian and is not a member of a church and is not involved in that church? That is extravagant disobedience to God. It is astonishlingly disobedient to God. One aspect of being filled with the Spirit then is not an isolated personal experience but one that directs a believer to function with other believers in an interdependent relationship. The Holy Spirit leads a believer in His work of sanctification to a dependence on the gifts and spiritual graces of others. Believers are not to remain in isolation nor does He develop believers in isolation. Sanctification is a working together as well as a working within. God is interested in developing the body (assembly) as well as developing the individual. In reality, the two are accomplished at the same time within the context of church membership.
First Corinthians 12.13
We see from 1 Corinthians 12:13 that the Holy Spirit leads the new convert to join the body of Christ and verse 18 of that chapter explains that God sovereignly sets him in the body as it hath pleased him:
“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.” (v.13)
“But now hath God set the members every one
of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.” (v.18)
Verse 13 teaches that a believer is led by the Spirit to be baptized in water to be identified with Christ. This ordinance is obviously used as an entrance into the body because he is dependent on the body for the first time. The church body must administer baptism because only it has the authority to do so. Also, as we arise out of the baptismal waters, we are to walk in newness of life and exemplify Jesus Christ. One cannot put on Christ unless he is placed in His body. Galatians 3:27 says that “as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” This is why the Lord commanded believers to be baptized and then gave the church the authority to baptize. He purposely directed believers to His assemblies. It is wrong to not be a church member. It is wrong!
More Proof
The validity of interpreting 1 Corinthians 12:13 as speaking of water baptism is confirmed by Greek scholars. For example, A. T. Robertson understands the baptism spoken of in this passage as that “outward badge of service to Christ the symbol of the inward changes already wrought in them by the Holy Spirit.” Robertson further believes Galatians 3:27 and Romans 6:2 as speaking of water baptism. He says Galatians 3.27 is better translated “were baptized unto Christ” (emphasis ours) in the sense of “in reference to Christ” that is, “as a badge or uniform of service like that of the soldier.” This verb “put on” he says “is common in the sense of putting on garments (literally and metaphorically as here).” Concerning Romans 6:3 which states, “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?” he again says it is better translated “were baptized unto Christ or in Christ” (emphasis ours). He continues, “The translation ‘into’ makes Paul say that the union with Christ was brought to pass by means of baptism, which is not his idea, for Paul was not a Sacramentarian … Baptism is the public proclamation of one’s inward spiritual relation to Christ attained before the baptism.”
The Holy Spirit
Nowhere are we told in Scripture that the Holy Spirit would be the administrator of a baptism. This is a profoundly significant observation! Jesus prophesied that He would baptize with the Spirit. This prophecy was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost when Christ sent the Holy Spirit, with accompanying signs, and immersed the church assembled by His ministry and command. This work of Christ baptizing with the Spirit was also performed on the Gentiles gathered in Cornelius’ house (Acts 10:44-48). There may have been two other cases recorded in the book of Acts, but they are not confirmed by Scriptural testimony such as these two instances. This was the historic fulfillment and completion of this baptism with the Spirit by the administration of Jesus Christ. The Epistles develop no doctrine of the Spirit baptizing believers. The one supposed reference in 1 Corinthians 12:13 is at best a weak foundation. The Ephesian Epistle written subsequent to Christ’s fulfilling His promise to baptize with the Spirit, states that there is “one baptism” (Eph. 4:5). This obviously speaks of baptism in water not baptism by the Spirit. To assert that Ephesians 4:5 refers to Spirit baptism suggests baptism in water was no longer practiced when Paul wrote his Ephesian letter.
A Problem for the Mystical Body View
If the Spirit immediately upon salvation immerses all believers into the mystical body of Christ, why is it said that God sets the members in the body as it pleases him? They are spoken of as members before they are set; therefore if no members are set then no body exists, for the members constitute the body. Furthermore, if every believer is instantly immersed by the Spirit into the mystical body of Christ, why the need for the discretion of God who places or sets in the body as it pleases Him? This would be superfluous. When we think of a body we think of that which is organized, visible, local, and functioning. A body is diversity that expresses corporeal unity; it is organized life, full of activity, capable of growth, capable of reproducing.
The Trinity is displayed in Ephesians 4:3-6:
“Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even
as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith,
one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above
all, and through all, and in you all.”
Verses 3 and 4 teach about those things which are a work of the Holy Spirit. The life and existence of the body is dependent upon the Holy Spirit. There is no mystical supramundane body of Christ that He immerses believers into. Rather, He creates the unity of body life. If all the elements of a body are united they do not necessarily have life. It is the life of the Spirit that gives the unity and the existence of the body of Christ. That is why Jesus threatened to remove the lampstand of the Ephesian Church in the book of Revelation. If the organization of the Spirit’s life in bringing the gifts of Christ in living unity was removed, there would be at best a group of believers—but not a church of Jesus Christ. The Spirit is associated with the one body, in kind, to which we are called (verse 4 and Col. 3:15). In Ephesians 4.5 the one baptism is not associated with the Spirit nor with the Father but with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is water baptism that associates us with Jesus Christ (Rom. 6:3-5 and Gal. 3:27).
Conclusion
A large number of scholars and churchmen, almost all Protestants and far too many Baptists, fail to properly distinguish between being in Christ and being in the body of Christ. By carelessly making these two things synonymous, serious confusion arises. Most new converts are told today that when they were saved they were placed in the “body” of Christ. It is gloriously true that when a person is saved they are placed “in Christ,” but being placed in the body of Christ is and your part is necessary to your spiritual growth. The realization that God is both concerned for your individual spiritual maturity and the corporate growth of the body of Christ where God has placed you is of primary importance.
Many find this chapter profoundly difficult to embrace, but not because of any difficulty of interpretation. The grammar and figure of speech are quite easy to grasp. The difficulty is cognitive dissonance.
When someone is faced with a truth that clashes with a previously held conviction, there is a conflict. It always happens in the human mind. In this and many other cases, it creates a conflict. Do you continue with the familiar or embrace the uncomfortable but true?
By the way, this is the clash that occurs with every scientist who makes a discovery that runs against the grain. This is Galileo. This is Kepler. This is Newton. They all had to deal with these cognitive dissonances, and they could either continue to go with the familiar or embrace the truth. Aren’t you glad they embraced the truth? I am.
Sadly, many walk away and refuse to address the conflict, pretending it is unimportant or unworthy of consideration. Others consciously reject the truth in various ways so they might continue with the familiar. I submit that most respond to a right understanding of the body of Christ metaphor by refusing to address the issue or by staying with the familiar instead of embracing the truth.
My prayer is that you will courageously embrace the truth.
Question? Comment?
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