1 Corinthians 12:12

“The one Spirit,” the leading thought of § 39, suggests the similitude of “the body” for the Church (called in ch. 3 the tillage, building, temple of God), since this is the seat of His multifarious energies. In the Eph. and Col. Epp. τὸ σῶμα becomes a fixed title for the Christian community, setting forth its relation both to the inhabiting Spirit and to the sovereign Head; as yet it remains a plastic figure. Aristotle had applied this image to the State, the body politic; and the idea was a Gr [1870] commonplace. The Ap. is still insisting on the breadth of the Holy Spirit's working, as against Cor [1871] partisanship and predilection for miraculous endowments; hence the reiterated ἓν and πολλά, also the emphatic πάντα of the second clause: “but all the members of the body, many as they are (πολλὰ ὄντα), are one body”. In applying the comparison, Paul writes not as one expects, οὕτως ἡ ἐκκλησία or οὔτως ἡμεῖς, but with heightened solemnity οὕτως καὶ ὁ Χριστός, “so also is the Christ!” “Christ stands by metonomy for the community united through Him and grounded in Him” (Hn [1872]). This substitution shows how realistic was P.'s conception of believers as subsisting “in Christ,” and raises the idea of Church-unity to its highest point; “all the members are instinct with one personality” (Ed [1873]): cf. Galatians 2:20 2 Corinthians 13:3; 2 Corinthians 13:5, for this identification in the case of the individual Christian. The later representation of Christ and the Church as Head and Body is implicit in this phrase. For Χριστὸς with art [1874], cf. 1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 10:4, etc.; also Ephesians 5:23 ff.

[1870] Greek, or Grotius' Annotationes in N.T.

[1871] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[1872] C. F. G. Heinrici's Erklärung der Korintherbriefe (1880), or 1 Korinther in Meyer's krit.-exegetisches Kommentar (1896).

[1873] T. C. Edwards' Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians. 2

[1874] grammatical article.