BODY DYNAMICS – 1 Corinthians 12:12-26
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on July 28, 2019 under 2019 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; July 28, 2019 from 1 Corinthians 12:12-26
Theme: The Holy Spirit gives direction to the various spiritual gifts so that they each work together for the good of all.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
All we have to do is to look at how God has made our own bodies.
The apostle Paul had been writing to the Corinthian Christians about how they were to use the spiritual gifts that the Lord Jesus has given His church—those unique Holy Spirit-empowered abilities, entrusted to each believer in Christ, that enables them to serve the church family with love. Some believers in that ancient Corinthian church has been misusing their gifts and were expressing them in self-serving ways. And so, as a part of helping them to get their thinking right about serving each other as they should, Paul wrote and told them;
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact, the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it (1 Corinthians 12:12-26).
It’s pretty much a self-explanatory picture; isn’t it? There are even some portions of this picture that make us laugh just a bit. As an effective illustration, it really works well for just about everyone! Each of us, after all, has a body of our own; and we all know how that body is put together in a wonderful way.
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There’s a passage in Ephesians 4 that I find myself constantly going back to with respect to this whole subject. It’s Ephesians 4:11-16. As a church family, I don’t believe we can look at it too often. Paul had been telling his fellow Christians about the marvelous gifts that the Lord Jesus has bestowed upon His church; and he wrote;
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:11-16).
Look especially at Ephesians 4:16. With Jesus as the divine Head of His body, we’re told about how the church is to grow up into Him—drawing its life and strength from Him—becoming more and more conformed to His image—and with all the various parts of the body being “joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share …”
Think of your own body. Think of the way the various parts are joined together to form the whole. Paul refers to the points of connection between these various parts as “joints”. The physical body is joined and knit together by “what every joint supplies”. Each part is connected; doing its share to serve the others and contributing to the growth of the body. What a marvelous creation the human body is. And what a wonderful thing the church is! And what an effective illustration the body is of how the church works.
And that wonderful design is what Paul is emphasizing to us in our passage this morning. When the Lord Jesus called us to Himself and redeemed us by faith, He didn’t save us as a big bunch of individual ‘free-agents’ in which it’s ‘every-man-for-himself’. He purposefully saved us in order to join together into a single body; with each individual believer’s unique ‘spiritual gift’ contributing to the blessedness others for the growth of the whole church body. This morning’s passage establishes that wonderful design into our thinking in a very powerful and memorable way. It’s intended to help us as believers to appreciate what a wonderful thing we are together. It calls our attention to the wonders of the human body; and from it, helps us to see how we—as members of Jesus’ church—work together.
If we keep the dynamics of our own human body in mind, it’ll help us to stay on track in using the spiritual gifts in the church family to serve one another.
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Now; let’s look back for a moment to the previous passage. In it, the apostle Paul began teaching us the theology of the spiritual gifts. That’s what 1 Corinthians 12 is really all about—the theology of the spiritual gifts. First, he taught us the important principle that there is one, single life that animates the whole church body. We’re not a bunch of independent parts that are merely stuck together—each one wiggling away with our own life source. There is a single dynamic of life that runs through all of us and that binds us and our spiritual gifts together. And that life is personal. As Paul puts it in verses 4-6;
There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all (vv. 4-6).
That single source of life is the Triune God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—three Persons but one God—all in love and in union with one another, all in operation in the church through the spiritual gifts. One single divine life animates the whole. And what’s more, that one single life puts the various parts in their proper places in the body with wisdom and purpose. As Paul went on to write;
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills (1 Corinthians 12:4-11).
Consider your own body. Look at your left hand, for example. Isn’t the same force of life at work in the right hand as in the left? Sever a part from the whole, and it will not live on independently; because each part is animated by and dependent upon only one source of life. It needs that single life working in it in order for it to operate—the same, single life that operates through the whole of your body. And then, look at how your left hand is strategically placed where it is (not surprisingly, on the left side)—in just such a way as to be able to clasp hold of, and work with, and perfectly complement your right hand (which is conveniently on the right side). Put your left palm on the back of your right hand and you’ll see how different they are. But turn them palm to palm, and see how they perfectly complement each other in spite of their difference. What a marvelous product of design we are! What a wonderful thing it is that one life animates the whole and fits the parts together perfectly in a wonderful design!
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That life source, and the marvel of our design, speaks of God’s part in the working of the spiritual body of Christ—the church. But as our passage this morning then goes on to show us, there are dynamics that operate in the body itself that teach us much about the role that each of us plays in the church.
First, notice that there is the dynamic of …
1. UNITY.
There are different parts to our body; but these different parts are all brought together to form only one unified body. In verse 12, Paul puts it this way: “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.” Each individual believer in the church family is a unique person—with unique gifts, and a unique personality, and with a unique background. It’s true that we have different abilities, and different roles to play. But with all of our differences as unique individuals in the Father’s household, we are nevertheless formed together by Him into only one body—just as the unique individual parts of our body are formed together into only one physical body. When you meet me, you don’t say, “Hello there, all of you individual, distinct body parts all collected together! How are you all today?” You greet me as a whole person. And that’s what we are together in Christ.
How does that happen? Paul doesn’t simply say we’re united because of some kind of ‘sentimental’ feeling. We aren’t said to be ‘one’ simply because it sounds like a nice ‘Hallmark Card’ thing to say. It’s because of something real that the Triune God has done for us that fundamentally unites us into one real spiritual union. In verse 13, Paul wrote, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit (v. 13).
This speaks of a work of the Holy Spirit—something called ‘baptism’. This isn’t talking about the ceremony of baptism that we perform in water. Rather, it’s something that only the Holy Spirit does—something that baptism in water is meant to symbolize. When we believe on the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit ‘baptized’ us into Jesus Christ once for all time—as a spiritual act—so that we became permanently identified with the Lord Jesus in every way. He forever ‘puts us into’ Christ. As it says in Romans 6;
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4).
When the Holy Spirit baptizes us into Christ, He permanently places us into Christ; so much so, in fact, that His death is now our death, and His burial is now our burial, and His resurrection is now our resurrection. And what’s more, in doing this, the Spirit thus baptizes us all—together—forever—into one body with each other. As it says in Galatians 3;
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:27-28).
And that’s how you and I need to see ourselves from now on—and also how we need to see each other in the church family. We need to view ourselves—with all our differences of personality and spiritual gifts and backgrounds—as now one in Christ, and as untied into only one body; just as our own various bodily parts are united into only one human body.
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But our unity in one body doesn’t mean that we lose our uniquenesses or distinctions—any more than the various parts of our body being united together means they are now all just one big body part. Paul goes on to tell us about the dynamic of …
2. VARIETY.
The dynamic of ‘variety’ means that a physical body requires a distinction of individual members in order to function. In verse 14, Paul writes, “For in fact the body is not one member but many.”
Now; Paul illustrates this to us in a humorous way. In verse 15 he wrote, “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,’ is it therefore not of the body?” And the answer, of course, is ‘no’. The hand is a pretty esteemed part of the body. It’s the first thing we usually put forth whenever we meet someone. I’m glad we don’t do that with the foot. But if the foot should feel badly because it’s not a hand, that doesn’t make it any less a part of the body than the hand is. It just means that it fills the role in the body of a foot—and not of a hand. The hand really can’t get along too far along without the foot! Or, in verse 16, Paul writes, “And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,’ is it therefore not of the body?” And again, the answer is ‘no’. When we talk to someone, we tend to look right into their eyes. I’m glad that when we talk to our sweetheart, we don’t gaze lovingly into their ears. But if the ear should feel badly because it’s not an eye, that doesn’t make it any less a part of the eye. The eye can’t really turn around and look at someone when they call to us unless the ear does its job. And you don’t really want to whisper sweet nothings into your loved one’s eye.
In order for there to be a physical body, there has to be a distinction of the members. There has to be a variety. They can’t all do the same job. As Paul says in verse 17, “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?” It wouldn’t work if our whole body was just one big foot, or one big ear, or one big nose. And of course, that’s true also of the spiritual body—the body of Christ. God unites us into one body. We share a unity. But He still preserves the variety. And He arranges and distributes this variety in a wise and purposeful way. As Paul writes in verses 18-19; “But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be?”
Sometimes, it may bother us that others in the church family are so different from us. Or it might even frustrate us a little that we don’t have the role in the church family that God has given to someone else. But let’s not be bothered by the variety. What a horrible thing it would be if we were all exactly the same! Instead, let’s rejoice in the variety that God has built into His church; and let’s learn to appreciate the different ways that our various gifts complement each other.
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And more; let’s learn to appreciate how those differences are necessary. Paul goes on to speak of the dynamic of …
3. INTERDEPENDENCY.
In ‘interdependency’, the human body is bound together in such a way that the various parts of the body each need the others in order to do their own work. In verses 20-21, Paul wrote, “But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” The human eye is a marvelous part of the body that is truly wonderful and intricate. But even though the eye can look around and perceive all kinds of things, it can’t pick up anything without the hand. And the head is much more remarkable than the foot. But even though the head can think all kind of thoughts, it can’t get anywhere to do anything about those thoughts without the feet.
And the same is true of the body of Christ. There are some members of the church family that seem ‘up front’ and more recognizable in what they do. And there are others in the church family who do things that are unseen and unrecognized—but without whom none of the ‘up front’ kind of ministries could ever happen. In our physical bodies, there are parts that we never see or that we hardly ever think of. We never clean them or dress them up or put jewelry on them, because they’re deep inside us. They are delicate and frail; and they would be badly damaged if handled or exposed. But if they weren’t there—doing their silent and unnoticed jobs—we would die very quickly. As Paul puts it in verse 22, we really can’t get along without them: “No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.”
Let’s learn, then, to recognize and appreciate our interdependency. Let’s never let ourselves think that we can get along without what God has given to one another. More than that; let’s learn to say thanks to one another and appreciate what we each give to one another.
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This leads to yet another dynamic in the human body; and that’s …
4. NURTURE.
In this dynamic, the various parts of the body show loving care for each other. They protect each other. They provide for each other. In verses 23-24, Paul wrote; “And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need.”
There are parts of our physical body that we hide from view. We think of it as ‘dishonorable’ for them to be seen; and so, modesty requires that they be protected. In a sense, our protection shows ‘greater honor’ to those parts that we think of as less honorable. But there are other parts of our body that we are not concerned about anyone seeing. In fact, there are some parts of our body that we constantly check in the mirror, and that spend a little money getting fixed up, and that we prepare to be freely seen—parts that we want to be known by. And the same is true for our spiritual body—the church. There are some of us who provide a much-needed role in the church family, but who also need to be protected and preserved from exposure. I have found that there are some of us who fill a vital role in our church family—something that is much needed—but who honestly do not want recognition for what they do. It would hurt them, and would harm their role to our church family, if it was all set out in front of everyone. And yet, there are others in the church family who have up-front roles; and who are not bothered at all by the exposure. There are some of us who meet the needs of others who are going through delicate times of trial; and the ministry that others provide to them requires that the need be kept private, and that feelings be protected.
Paul went on to say, in verses 24-25; “But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another.” What a wise Designer our Father is! He knows how to entrust certain gifts to certain people in order to meet certain needs in certain ways that truly show love and care. Let’s appreciate how God does this for us; so that we provide the necessary nurture of each member for the good of the whole church body.
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And that leads us to one more dynamic. I admit I have a hard time finding the best name for it; but the name I have settled on is …
5. MUTUALITY.
In the principle of ‘mutuality’, all of the individual parts share together in whatever one part experiences. In verse 26, Paul wrote, “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (v. 26).
Have you ever stubbed your little toe in the dark? I’m sure you have. And do you notice that when it happens, it’s not just your toe that suffers? Your whole body gets involved. Your hand grabs the toe that is hurting, and your other foot starts to jump up and down while the other hand is looking for something to grab on to so you don’t hurt yourself in some other way. Your mouth even gets into the act. The whole body feels like one big, giant stubbed little toe! And it’s the same in the body of Christ. When one of us is hurting, the whole body feels the pain. We join in together to provide comfort. We call out to God together in prayer. And we put our gifts to work in ministering to the need. And the same is true in honor. When you graduated from high school or college, and you attended the commencement ceremony, they didn’t just congratulate your brain. They asked your whole person to come forward and receive the diploma. And the same is true in the body of Christ. When one of us experiences a victory, the whole body feels the joy.
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That’s how our physical body works. There is a unity to its members; but the variety of parts is necessary for the whole. The parts are interdependent—so that each one needs the other. There is nurturing care that the parts give to each other. And in all of it, there is a mutuality in the way that all the parts share together in either the suffering or the honor of just one part.
And these same dynamics are involved in how our church family is to work. Let’s appreciate one another in reverent submission to God’s marvelous design.
EA
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