1 Corinthians 12:13,14

“And indeed, by being baptized by one Spirit, we have all become one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free.”

The καὶ γάρ, and indeed, relates to the last words of the foregoing verse: So is it with the Christ, the demonstration of which it announces.

The καί indicates a second fact analogous to the preceding; the γάρ shows that this fact justifies the comparison between the human body and what is done in Christ.

How different were both the religious condition (Jews, Gentiles) and the social condition (bond, free) of all those members of the Church of Corinth! By the same Spirit, into which they had all been baptized, they now find themselves fused, as it were, into one spiritual body, that is to say, into a society all whose members are moved by the same breath of life.

The ἐν (in or by one Spirit) denotes the means, and the εἰς (into one body) the result attained. When we think of the distance which at that period separated Jews from Gentiles, slaves from freemen, we measure the power of the principle of union which had filled up those gulfs. All those men so diverse in their antecedents, when once they go forth regenerated from baptism, form thenceforth only one new man in Christ (Ephesians 2:15).

But if diversity of gifts is resolved into unity by the fusion of all the individuals into one spiritual whole, the converse is also true. In Christ, as well as in the human body, unity must spread out into diversity. Such is the new idea to which the apostle passes from the second part of 1 Corinthians 12:13. On the understanding of this transition depends the understanding of the chapter as a whole. Thus far the apostle has explained how, notwithstanding their varied multiplicity, the gifts are one in virtue of their common principle, the Holy Spirit, and their sole destination, not the private advantage of their possessor, but the profit of the whole (1 Corinthians 12:7). Nevertheless this unity of principle and aim should not injure the manifestation of their diversity; they are and should remain different, as to the form in which they show themselves and their mode of action. And it is this other aspect of the truth, the necessary complement of the former, which is developed in the rest of the chapter.

Vers. 13b, 14. “And were all made to drink of one Spirit. 14. For also the body is not one member, but many.”

The reading is not εἰς ἓν πνεῦμα, but ἓν πνεῦμα without εἰς. This accusative is the qualifying substantive of the verb to make to drink; comp. the same construction 1 Corinthians 3:2.

The καί, and, contains the transition which we have just mentioned. And what clearly proves that we pass here to the idea of the diversity of gifts is the καὶ γάρ, for also, at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 12:14, a verse which is evidently meant to explain this diversity by that of the members of the body. This passage to the new idea (diversity) is also that which will enable us to apprehend the true meaning of the second proposition of 1 Corinthians 12:13. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Osiander, Neander, Heinrici find in it the idea of the Holy Supper. They have been led to this view by the mention of baptism in the first part of the verse, as well as by the term ἐποτίσθημεν, we were made to drink, which seems to allude to the cup in the sacrament. But the expression to drink the Holy Spirit in the Supper is absolutely foreign to the language of Scripture. It is of the blood of Christ that the believer partakes when he uses the cup. Then in this sense the aor. ἐποτίσθημεν would not find a natural explanation, for the sacramental act is ever being repeated anew.

Or is it baptism that is still in question, as is held by Chrysostom, Bengel, de Wette, Meyer, Edwards? But the figure of drinking, or being made to drink (ποτισθῆναι), is as foreign to the form of the baptismal rite, as that of plunging, being bathed (βαπτισθῆναι), is naturally associated with it. Besides, the καί, and, indicates a new fact. If the second proposition served only to reaffirm in another form the idea of the first, there would be an asyndeton. The new fact in the mind of the apostle seems to me to be the communication of the gifts of the Spirit which accompanied the laying on of hands after baptism; comp. Acts 8:17; Acts 19:6 (Acts 10:45-46). By baptism the believer is bathed in the Spirit as the source of new life; by the act which follows, the Spirit enters into him as the principle of certain particular gifts and of the personal activity which will flow from them. The believer is first plunged, bathed, in order to die to himself and live to God (Romans 6:3-5); then he is made to drink, saturated with new forces, that he may be able to serve the body of which he has become a member. Such are the two sides of his relation to the Holy Spirit. Holsten seems to me to have understood this passage nearly as I have done. It is easy to see how this thought forms the transition from the idea of the unity of the body to that of the diversity of gifts. After having been bathed in the same common life, they all come forth from it with the different gifts communicated to them by the Spirit.