But all these things operates the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each in particular according as he pleases.
Paul has been listing the gifts God gives to Christians. Here he names the one source behind them all, and settles who decides who gets what.
The closing phrase claims for the Spirit what only God can claim.
Here it is what God does, not man. The Spirit gives to one the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another faith. To another He gives miraculous gifts, to another prophecy, to another the gift of tongues. "AS HE WILLS" covers all this. It is the assertion of sovereignty, an essential attribute that belongs to God alone.
A force cannot choose. Here the Spirit chooses, and that tells us who He is.
Many passages prove His personality — a matter of great importance, often lost sight of by those who constantly speak of Him as an influence. Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3). He "apportions to each one individually as He wills" (1 Cor. 12:11).
The verse does two things at once. It spreads the gifts among many people, and traces them all back to one worker.
Here we see the unity of the Spirit. He not only distributes each gift to each person; He works all the gifts, so keeping up dependence on His power. We see no less His sovereign activity as a divine Person… Evil and error may have as many springs as there are men and demons with their varied and often conflicting wills, lusts, and passions. But the very same Spirit works all that glorifies Christ in these different gifts. He gives them out at His pleasure to each servant of the Lord.
Many gifts under one will is not disorder. It is God's own arrangement, and human systems tend to replace it.
God's order for His assembly is a variety of gifts, given to different people, exercised by one will — the power and will of the Holy Spirit. All true order in the assemblies of God's people is the outcome of God Himself working among His people. The Christian world at large ignores this order in practice, if not in doctrine. It does so by its human arrangements, its appointed ministers and its fixed ritual.
The words "to each one" leave no group outside. Yet church practice has often marked off one class of Christians from the rest.
Setting aside a special class as priests limits the action of the Spirit of God to one class. It plainly contradicts the Scripture, "who apportions to EACH ONE individually as HE wills" (1 Cor. 12:11).
If the Spirit decides, no one at Corinth had grounds for self-display.
The Corinthians, unmindful of these truths, wanted to exercise the gift of tongues for their own exaltation and self-glorification. Yet what was it but a gift given to them, and by the Spirit just as He would? In truth, every gift was what its name meant — charisma, a favour. The Holy Spirit granted it to the one who had it, just as He chose. The person had not deserved it, and could not claim it. He only received it. Each gift of the Spirit was for the profit of all.
The Spirit chooses freely. That does not mean He is careless about whom He uses.
God is sovereign in His choice of instruments, true; but He morally fits the instrument for the purpose He has in view… So it is always true that in giving His gifts the Holy Spirit "apportions to each one individually as He wills" (1 Cor. 12:11). It is equally true that for the exercise of these gifts He selects those whom prayer and the diligent study of His word have fitted for His service.
This truth also ends copying and fault-finding among Christians.
The Holy Spirit is Sovereign, but He does not work in one member independently of all the others. I think no two gifts are alike. There are varieties of gifts, but one Spirit, and He alone has distributed them. We would do well to pay attention to this, and to the fact that services differ while there is one Lord. Man cannot make gifts; God gives them… If we understood the differences of services, and that each of us is responsible to the Lord, it would keep us from imitating others, or criticizing them.
- One Giver. The same Spirit works every gift on the list, loud or quiet. The variety is wide; the source is one.
- One Will. "As He wills" claims sovereignty, which belongs to God alone. It shows the Spirit is a Person who chooses, not an influence.
- One Reach. He gives to each one. No believer is without a gift, and no special class can own what the Spirit hands out.
- One Response. A gift is a favour no one deserved or could claim; it was never given for self-glorification, but for the profit of all.
- One Result. The Spirit alone hands out the gifts. Knowing that cures discontent with our own place and criticism of everyone else's.
For even as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also [is] the Christ.
Paul has just listed the many gifts the Spirit gives. Now he explains why that variety never splits the church: a body has many limbs and is still one body. What startles the reader is the last clause — he does not say "so also is the church," but names the whole thing Christ. (Older translations read "so also is the Christ"; the ESV renders it "so it is with Christ.")
Paul pushes the comparison further than we might expect. He does not just compare the church to a body, or link it to Christ. He gives it Christ's own name.
Scripture does not only say the body is united with Christ. It says the body is Christ Himself — "so also is Christ." The limbs, so to speak, are simply attached to the Head. The Head gives motion, life, and character to the whole, so the whole thing goes by the name of the Head. It is not easy to grasp the full force of this remarkable language. It seems to lose the Church in Christ, so that He alone is seen, and the Church looks like only a part of Him.
That one name covers both the Head above and the members below:
Paul is clearly speaking of the Head in glory and the body here on earth. Together they make up one spiritual "man": Christ is the Head, and all the members are the body. When he says, "So also is Christ," he gives that one mystical man a single name — Christ.
The verse states the fact. The next verse tells us how it happened.
Verse thirteen explains the statement made in verse twelve. It gives the nature and origin of the wonderful truth of verse twelve, which is this: though we are many members, we are one body, and that body carries the name Christ.
One writer rules out two common ideas of how unity comes about:
We, the members, do not build this unity ourselves. It does not come from each one losing his individuality and merging into the others. That is not how the body is formed. What forms it is the connection of the members with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some treat this body as something only heavenly, or still future. The answer runs through the whole chapter.
Look at 1 Corinthians 12:12 to the end. No one in his right mind can fail to see a body on earth here. Paul compares it to our natural body... But it is by one Spirit that we are baptized into one body, and this took place on earth... Which of these gifts are to be exercised in heaven? The whole passage is as clear as language can make it: there is a body formed on earth.
This body is bigger than any one local church. Even so, the local church has a job to do about it.
Our human spirit controls how our bodies work. In the same way, the Spirit of God is the animating power of every member of the body of Christ. The body is one. It has many members, yet together they are one body. "So also is the Christ." This is not just local. It takes in the whole body of Christ worldwide, though the local assembly is meant to give expression to it.
One sentence holds two truths, and each keeps the other in balance.
"For just as the body is one and has many members" — this is diversity in unity. "And all the members of the body, though many, are one body" — this is unity in diversity. "So also is the Christ." We are united in one body, the Christ, and yet every child of God has his own appointed work, which no one else can do for him. Each one receives a different service. I cannot do yours, and you cannot do mine.
The teaching cuts two ways at once. It stands against a few doing everything, and against anyone acting alone.
This side of the truth guards us from clericalism, and also from independence. Every member of the one body is needed. Where the gathering does not quench the Spirit, He works through the members for the profit of all.
- One Spirit — no agreement of ours builds the body, and no merging of members makes it. One Spirit joins each one to Christ.
- One name — Scripture puts the Head in glory and the members on earth under one name: Christ.
- One earth — these gifts are used here and now, so the body is real on earth today, not only in heaven.
- One scope — the reach is worldwide, and the local gathering exists to give visible expression to it.
- One task each — inside that unity every believer has a service no one else can do. So neither a clergy class nor a go-it-alone spirit fits the body.
For also in [the power of] one Spirit *we* have all been baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bondmen or free, and have all been given to drink of one Spirit.
Here Paul says why the many members are one: one Spirit made them so. That raises three questions — is this water baptism, when did it happen, and what does it mean to be "made to drink" of one Spirit?
The word "baptized" makes many readers think of water. One writer rules that out and points to the Spirit's own act:
Of much importance is verse 13... This refers to the formation of the body. The baptism mentioned in this verse is not water baptism. Water baptism does not save, nor can this ordinance put anyone as a member into the true church, the one body. The baptism is the baptism of the Spirit. It took place on the day of Pentecost. On that day the Spirit was poured out, and while He filled every believer, He also united them into one body. Then the body of Christ was formed once for all by this baptism... Many Christians speak of repeated baptisms by the Spirit and point to certain experiences as new baptisms. In the light of this verse all this is incorrect. Scripture knows only one baptism.
One writer draws a careful line between faith and the Spirit's coming:
Note this carefully: faith did not form this unity, precious and mighty as faith is. The Holy Spirit formed it, sent down in person from heaven. Faith is individual; it does not unite, though it fits for union morally. One believes the gospel for one's own soul... But the baptism of the Spirit is something more than life. So it is not given to the dead unbeliever, but to those already made alive. The result is the one body.
How do later believers get in? One writer answers with a picture:
Picture a lake with water as smooth as glass. Someone picks up a pebble and flings it into the centre. What is the result? A circle forms, and it widens and widens until every reed in the lake stands inside it. From the day of Pentecost until now, every soul born of God is brought into that unity, sooner or later, when he receives the forgiveness of his sins and the Holy Spirit.
The picture inside the word "baptized" explains why Paul names Jew and Greek, slave and free:
In baptism a man is submerged and figuratively buried. Here is the basis on which the one body was formed and we are brought into it. We are natural men, children of Adam, with all our personal quirks and rough edges. And we have been submerged in the one Spirit. So all our natural distinctions have disappeared in the one body. There was no greater national distinction than Jew and Gentile. There was no clearer social divide than slave and free. But these distinctions and divides, and all others like them, are gone in the one body.
The second half of the verse is not a repeat of the first:
We have all been baptized in one Spirit into one body. But there is more: each of us, separately and for ourselves, has been made to "drink into (or, of) one Spirit." This seems to be a reference to John 7:37-39. Each member of the body has personally received or drunk of the one Spirit, so that He characterises and governs each. So unity is produced in this twofold way. Each has been submerged in the Spirit, and the Spirit is in each by a personal drinking in.
An older wording of the phrase reads "made to drink into one Spirit." One writer takes it as a mark of shared character:
"We have all been made to drink into one Spirit." This is characteristic... They are all of one mind, all set on the same thing; heart and soul they are seeking the same object... What is that Spirit? It is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit which produces likeness to Christ.
But what about the divisions and failures we see?
God formed it by an act in the energy of the one Spirit, and that guarantees its integrity. Man cannot violate or destroy it, and neither can satanic power. But the visible display of it during its stay on earth may be marred, and has been. The thing itself, divinely formed, remains, and will be perfectly displayed in glory.
Corinth showed that marring, and it repeats:
Had the Corinthians paid attention to this, how much sorrow and shame would have been spared!... It is a state that is always ready to repeat itself. It shows up most where knowledge takes the place of love, and believers stoop to form cliques with a favourite leader.
- One Spirit acts — water baptism did not form the body. The Spirit poured out at Pentecost did, once for all.
- One life given — faith is personal, and it does not unite. This baptism comes on top of life, to those already made alive.
- One circle widening — the act happened once. Every soul since who receives forgiveness and the Spirit comes inside that circle.
- One level ground — baptism means being submerged; the old self goes under, and with it Jew and Greek, slave and free.
- One drink shared — each member takes in the same Spirit, so unity is shared and inward at once. Cliques and favourite leaders only spoil the display of what man cannot destroy.