1 Corinthians 12:13

καὶ γὰρ ἐν ἑβὶ Πνεύματι κ. τ. λ.: “For indeed in one Spirit we all into one body were baptized whether Jews or Greeks, whether bondmen or freemen and we all of one Spirit were made to drink,” were drenched (Ev [1875]). An appeal to experience (cf. Galatians 3:2 ff; Galatians 4:6; also Acts 19:2-6): at their baptism the Cor [1876] believers, differing in race and rank, were consciously made one; one Spirit flooded their souls with the love and joy of a common faith in Christ. For βαπτίζω ἐν and εἰς, see parls.: ἐν defines the element and ruling influence of the baptism, εἰς the relationship to which it introduces. P. refers to actual Christian baptism, the essence of which lay in the regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit (John 3:5 ff., Titus 3:5 f.); baptism represents the entire process of personal salvation which it seals and attests (Ephesians 1:13; Galatians 3:26 ff., Romans 6:2 ff.), as the Queen's coronation imports her whole investiture with royalty. That Jews and Greeks, slaves and freemen, had received at the outset an identical Spirit, shows that they were intended to form a single body, and that this body was designed to have a wide variety of members (1 Corinthians 12:11 f.). ἐποτίσθημεν (see parls.) has been referred by Cm [1877], Aug [1878], Cv [1879], Est., and latterly by Hn [1880], to the ποτήριον of the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 10:16; 1 Corinthians 11:25), as though καὶ coupled the two consecutive Sacraments (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:2 f., and notes); but the tense, parl [1881] to ἐβαπτίσθημεν (otherwise in 1 Corinthians 10:16, etc.), points to a past event, not a repeated act; and it is “the blood of Christ,” not the Holy Spirit, that fills (symbolically) the Eucharistic cup. The two aors. describe the same primary experience under opposite figures (the former of which is acted in baptism), as an outward affusion and an inward absorption; the Cor [1882] were at once immersed in (cf. συνετάφημεν, Romans 6:4) and saturated with the Spirit; the second figure supplements the first: cf. Romans 5:5; Titus 3:5-6. ποτίζω, which takes double acc [1883] (1 Corinthians 3:2), retains that of the thing in the passive.

[1875] T. S. Evans in Speaker's Commentary.

[1876] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[1877] John Chrysostom's Homiliœ († 407).

[1878] Augustine.

[1879] Calvin's In Nov. Testamentum Commentarii.

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

[1881] parallel.

[1882] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[1883] accusative case.