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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman More
Than A Metaphor 1 Corinthians 12:14
through 18 reads: "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." In the above passage
Paul used the human body as a metaphor to describe church.
Like a human body, church consists of many individuals having
specific tasks functioning together for the health of the church.
Yes, Paul was thinking of church in metaphoric terms, but if you
study these verses in their context, it's more than a metaphor.
Read verse 13. "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." Our English word
"baptize" is translated from the Greek word "baptizo"
that simply means "to immerse."
Unlike our English word "baptize" that has highly
theological implications, "baptizo" was a non-theological,
everyday usage word, and that is how I believe Paul used it here.
Paul didn't have water or Spirit baptism in mind when he penned
these words. He was thinking
of being immersed into one body, the church.
That is to say, when you received the Holy Spirit into your life,
you were immersed into the lives of those Jesus placed you alongside in
His earthy body, the church. Now
read verse 27. "Now you are the
body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." In verse 27 Paul
specifically wrote, "You are the body of Christ." Our
English verb "you are" is a present, active, indicative Greek
verb. That means right now in
present time you are actively, without a doubt, Jesus' physical body on
earth. After using the human
body as a metaphor to describe church, Paul leaves the metaphor behind and
gets literal. Since Jesus is no longer
on earth in a human form, and, since the Holy Spirit lives within the
Christian and the church, the church is Jesus' present-day, flesh and
blood earthly body. That's
more than a metaphor that has many important implications.
Post
Script Many books have been
written about how we should and can improve the culture of church, but
unless we understand the Biblical meaning of church, we can't improve its
culture. I believe my book
entitled "The Community We Call Church," on all Amazon sites,
provides an accurate Biblical portrayal of the nature of church.
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