Word of Salvation – Vol. 30 No. 08 – February 1985
Joining The Church
Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde, M.A., M.Th. on 1Corinthians 12: 13
(Belgic Confession: Art.28)
Scriptures: Ephesians 4:1-16; 1Corinthians 12:12-26
Suggested Hymns: 162:1,2,5; 165; 479; 442
Congregation of our Lord Jesus,
“You don’t have to belong to a church to be a Christian!” I wonder how often you have heard a statement like that before? Maybe words like these have even crossed your own lips, or perhaps at least you’ve been inclined to think along those lines: “Well, of course, there are people who don’t belong to a church, who never even go to church, but you’d still have to regard them as Christians. Sometimes they even seem better Christians than some people who do go to church.”
It’s a very common and casual way of thinking; it’s also very easy to excuse apparently sincere people for not going to church because there are so many churches anyway and so how are they supposed to know which is the right one? And, when you look at the Bible it doesn’t seem to say very much about church membership or even about going to church. The emphasis seems to be much more on faith and repentance and loving your neighbour; and surely you can do all these things without being a member of a church?
Sometimes this line of reasoning may sound very plausible, even very pious, and yet it goes right against the grain of Biblical teaching. So in this sermon it will be my aim to show you from the Scriptures that if a person is a Christian, then his great desire will be, not only to go to church, but to be a living part of the church. These questions or challenges or excuses we hear so often about not going to church or not belonging to a church, are all answered quite clearly in the Bible itself:
(i) From our text – 1Cor.12:13;
(ii) From the wider context – the entire passage that we read in 1Cor.12.
So let’s begin with our text in 1 Corinthians 12: 13. “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”
Now Paul is obviously talking here about an experience that he and all the church members in Corinth had in common. He is talking about an experience that is shared by every Christian. What is that experience? It is that “we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body.” In other words, he is talking about Holy Spirit baptism; baptism by, with or in, the Holy Spirit. Now of course the big question is: What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and what does it mean in our text? Well, very basically there are three lines of interpretation:
(i) The first is what you could call the sacramental position.
In other words, this verse is about the sacrament of baptism or literal water baptism. Those who hold this view would say that people who are baptised are brought within the sphere of the Holy Spirit.
Some would take it even further and say that we were born again when we were baptised. Then we became Christians. In other words, the Spirit gives us new birth in Christ through baptism. When we are baptised with water we are born again. It’s the teaching of baptismal regeneration and I must say very emphatically that such teaching is misleading and that that is not what Paul is teaching in this verse. We are not born again through water baptism and in fact this verse has nothing to do with water baptism. You will remember the words of John the Baptist who said about Jesus: “I baptise with water, but the one coming after me will baptise with the Holy Spirit.”
And it is this kind of baptism that Paul is thinking of in our text. There is a very clear distinction between water baptism and Holy Spirit baptism. Our text is about the latter and not about the former. It is not about the sacrament of baptism, baptism with water. It is about baptism with the Holy Spirit.
(ii) This brings me to the second line of interpretation which you could call the Pentecostal view.
According to this view, the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a kind of “second blessing” in the Christian life. It happens sometime after conversion and is a quite distinct experience. Sometimes it happens soon after conversion; at other times it happens much later. It is an experience that every believer should go through and the initial evidence of it is speaking in tongues. As one writer has said:
“Pentecostals teach that, though one may be saved without this Spirit-baptism, one who has not yet had this experience does not have full consecration or full power for service, hence one’s ministry is hampered.” (Hoekema, p.58)
So obviously Pentecostals make a distinction between two kinds of Christians: those who have been baptised with the Holy Spirit and those who have not. But our text knows of no such distinction: “We were all baptised by one Spirit into one body; and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”
Whatever distinctions there may be among us, Paul says, whether they be national (Jews or Greeks) or social (slave or free) and whatever different gifts we may have, this is the one thing that we have in common; this is the one experience that we share, that we have all been baptised with the Holy Spirit. This is not something that one Christian has had and another hasn’t. This is at least one experience that every Christian has had. If you have not been baptised with the Spirit you are not a Christian. And it was not as though Corinth was some exceptional, ideal, Spirit-filled church. Far from it. Listen to the way Paul talks to them in Chapter 3: “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly, mere infants in Christ… You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?” (vss.1&3). That is Chapter 3. Yet in Chapter 12 he says: “We were all baptised by one Spirit into one body.” Obviously, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not just for some elite group. It’s also been the experience of rank-and-file Christians, weak and worldly though they may sometimes be.
Nor is it correct to say that the initial evidence for Spirit baptism is speaking in tongues. In the same chapter where Paul teaches that all have been baptised by the Spirit, he also teaches that only some speak in tongues (vs.30). So it is clear that our text is not talking about water baptism, nor is it referring to some second spiritual experience after conversion. This is not to deny that there are such experiences but they should not be called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So then what is the answer? What is Paul talking about in our text?
(iii) And here we come to the third interpretation which I believe is the correct one, and that is that this verse is referring to regeneration or the new birth.
Paul is here talking about born again people: “We were all baptised by one Spirit into one body.”
You see, the baptism of the Spirit in this verse, far from being a dividing factor (some have it, others have not), is the great uniting factor (it is an experience we have all had). And the new birth is certainly such an experience.
John the Baptist prophesied that Jesus would baptise with the Holy Spirit. His prophecy has been fulfilled at Pentecost as Jesus made clear just before His ascension when He said to His disciples: “John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit”, (Acts 1:5). And indeed on the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out, first on the 120 and then on the 3000. Later on, Peter refers to the conversion on Cornelius in the same terms.
And then finally, we have the expression, “baptised with the Spirit”. There are only seven occurrences of this expression in the New Testament; four by John the Baptist in referring to Jesus, once by Jesus in referring to Pentecost, once by Peter in referring to the conversion of Cornelius and finally by Paul in our text. Now, this verse cannot be a simple reference to the Day of Pentecost for neither Paul nor the Corinthians were there to share in the Pentecost event itself. Yet they too had come to share in the blessing which that event made possible. They had received the Holy Spirit.
So what is it to receive the Holy Spirit? Surely it is to be born again. It is the very first experience in the Christian life. The new birth is the beginning of something, just as baptism is the beginning of something. Water baptism is the initiatory Christian rite and Spirit baptism is the initiating Christian experience.
So here in our text Paul is talking about the new birth; and he refers to it in two ways: not only that we were all baptised by one Spirit, but also that we were all given the one Spirit to drink. They are two ways of looking at the same thing. Just as Jesus had predicted that He would baptise His followers with the Spirit, so He also predicted that He would give them His Spirit to drink.
Remember what the Lord said to the woman at the well in Samaria: “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life”, (John 4:14). Later He made a similar promise while He was preaching in Jerusalem: “If a man is thirsty let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. Then John adds a word of explanation: “By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” (John 7:37-39).
In both cases there is a parallel with water and Spirit. You can be baptised with water and you can be baptised with the Spirit. You can drink water and you can drink the Spirit. And the Corinthians had done both and notice that it is the past tense: “we were all baptised by one Spirit; and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” He is referring to a past experience they all had; and that is the new birth.
Now you may think that we have spent a long time labouring this point, but it’s been deliberate. If Paul is speaking here about the new birth and if you can’t be a Christian without being born again, then he is saying something very significant indeed. He is giving one of the main purposes of this rebirth. Just as John’s baptism had been into (or for) repentance, so Spirit baptism is “into one body”. The purpose of John’s baptism was repentance. The purpose of baptism of the Holy Spirit is to incorporate us into one body. That’s the purpose that Christ had in mind when He gave us the Holy Spirit, that we might become one body.
Now what is that body? And this question brings us to this whole passage in 1Corinthians 12, which explains what the body is. In verse 27 Paul states it in the clearest possible way: “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” Of course, it is true that the church of all ages, the church from the beginning of history until the end of time, is the body of Christ. The Bible certainly teaches that. That “one holy, catholic church” that is an article of our faith, is the body of Christ.
But that is not so much what Paul means. He is not talking about something out there, but about something right here. He is not talking about the universal church, but about the local church; not about something abstract but something concrete. What Paul said to the church of Corinth we can say to any congregation where the Gospel is taught and believed: “You are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it.” It’s not so much that you are some minute cell in the universal, mystical body of Christ; but rather that you are a hand, a foot, an ear, an eye in the body of Christ in whichever congregation you belong to.
And now let’s take a step back to the earlier points. Why was it that you were born again? What was the purpose of your being baptised with the Holy Spirit? It was that you might be incorporated into one body and that body is the church to which you belong, something tangible and visible and not something airy-fairy. That’s the reason (admittedly not the only reason), but certainly one of the reasons why Christ gave you His Holy Spirit. It was that you might be a living active member of His church, a part of His body wherever it may be. Jesus said: “Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And that kingdom comes in and through the local church which is the body of Christ. When we are born again we are not born as orphans, we are born into a family of brothers and sisters and that family comes to its clearest expression in the local church. It is in the local church that you find (not yet perfectly, but nonetheless really) the body of Christ, the kingdom of God and the family of the Lord.
Now for Paul, this illustration is extremely practical. We are to belong to a local expression of the body of Christ where we can be His ears, eyes, hands and feet. In fact there are many members who do the same work as Christ’s hands did in the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth. And when they use their manual skills in His service then surely they are His hands in His body. Others are His ears as they listen sympathetically to the plights and problems of others, and as they show the care and attention of Him who is the great listener. Still others are His eyes, His mouth, His feet. “You are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it.” Whatever your function may be, whatever member you may be, the fact of the matter is that you have a part to play, you are important, you are significant, you matter. It was for this reason that you were born again. It was for that you were baptised with the Holy Spirit that you might be incorporated into the body of Christ and do your bit in making it function as a living, healthy organism.
What an anomaly it is to find a person who claims to be a Christian and yet has nothing to do with the church. He’s like an amputated hand or leg. He makes no contribution to the functioning of the body and tries to go it alone. He’s cut himself off from the source of life and it’s unlikely that he’ll survive.
A Scottish pastor illustrated the point very eloquently one evening while visiting a wandering sheep of his congregation. The man hadn’t been to church for quite some time. And as they were sitting facing the charcoal fire they didn’t say much, dour Scotsmen that they were. At last the minister got up and with the poker he managed to isolate one of the coals from the rest of the fire. As the two men watched, the charcoal fire continued to burn brightly, but it wasn’t long before the lone coal went out. The man got the point and was in church the following Sunday.
It has been my experience that when a person says he’s a Christian and doesn’t go to church, either one of two things happens. Either he starts coming back to church or it turns out that he isn’t a Christian. A non-church-going Christian is a contradiction in terms. We were born again not just to go to heaven but to be part of Christ’s church on earth. Commitment to Christ implies commitment to the body of Christ. It’s as though Jesus says: “Love me, love my people.” It’s relatively easy to love Jesus. It can often be hard to love His people. But with the one must come the other. Therefore, it is the local church that deserves the Christian’s love and support. It is after all Christ’s body and whoever slights the church slights the Son of God. Rather we should all say:
“I love Thy church, O God!
Her walls before Thee stand,
Dear as the apple of Thine eye,
And graven on Thy hand.
For her my tears shall fall;
For her my prayers ascend;
To her my cares and toils be given,
‘Till toils and cares shall end.” (Ps.Hymn. 479:2&3)
And why should we love the church that way? Because Jesus loves the church that way. He loves you and me that way. Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. If Jesus gave himself up, do we ever have the right to simply give up? If Jesus shed His blood for the church, then the least we can do is to shed our tears and offer our prayers, our talents and our gifts.
Amen.