Greek contentiousness, their lack of loyalty and public spirit. The mental stimulus and large freedom of the new faith, where reverence and self-control were wanting, resulted for the time in greater tur- bulence rather than in a nobler and happier order.
(1) As we have seen, the Apostle insists above all that the Christian community is the building of God. Injury to this “temple of God” is the worst sacrilege (iii. 16 f.). The Church consists of those whom God has ‘‘called into the communion of His Son Jesus Christ ”’ (i. 9) ; who “were, in one Spirit, all baptised into one body . . . and all were made to drink of one Spirit ’—“ the Spirit that is from God” (ii. 12, xii. 13). This creative, informing Presence determines the nature, constitution and destihy of the Church.
(2) In relation to each other, Christian men form a brotherhood. Paul addresses his readers as ‘“‘ brethren.” not by way of courtesy or personal friendliness, but to enforce upon them mutual devotion. Each Christian looks upon his fellow as “the brother for whom Christ died”; to “sin against the brethren” is ‘to sin against Christ” (viii. 11 Π.). By communion of faith and worship in Christ a union of hearts is created more intimate and tender than the world had ever seen. Christians are to each other as eye to ear and hand to foot (xii. 14 ff.). Hach has his honourable place in the body, fixed by God; each is necessary to all, all to each (xii. 21-31). The rapturous outburst of chap. xiii. is a song to the praise of Love as the law of Christian brotherhood. Knowledge, faith, miracles are useless or unreal unless yoked to love, which points out the ‘‘ way” to the right employment of every faculty (xii. 31). ‘‘ The collection for the saints’ of Jerusalem (xvi. 1) was dictated by the affection that binds the scattered parts of the Church of God.
(3) The relations of Christians to God the Father, and to their believing brethren, alike centre in their relationship to Christ: the Church is His body—“a κοινωνία of the Son of God” (1. 9). The whole consciousness of the new life—personal or corporate—is grounded there ; ἐν Χριστώ, ἐν Χριστώ ᾿Ιησοῦ, ἐν Κυρίῳ, is the Apostle’s standing definition of Christian states and relations. To use Paul’s strong expression (vi. 17), ‘he who is cemented to the Lord, is one spirit”. By the fact that they severally inhere in Him, men are constituted ‘a body of Christ, and members individually” (xii. 27). No man in Christ is self-complete ; the eye finds its mate in the hand, the head in the foot. This reciprocal subordination dictates the law of the life in Christ Jesus and controls all its movements. The Apostle claims to be himself ἔννομος Χριστοῦ, because he “seeks not his own profit but that of the many” (x. 21 ff.). The question of i. 13,