The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 398

ship of an eternal inheritance, have been left neglected or meao-rely provided for? To bring this variety and unity more vivi,~ly before the Corinthia~s, St. Paul employs a most apt illustration taken from the human body as an organism. Already he had argued the diversity of gifts in adaptiveness to the capacities and wants of the Church. Left at that point, the argument would have been incomplete. It was needful to see what the Church itself was as an organization, and how its wholeness stood related to its individual parts. In the earlier portion of the Epistle he had combated the unhappy tendency towards an excessive individualism. Theoretic speculations had been kept out of sight, and practical questions, lying within imme- diate range and urgently demanding treatment, had been scrutinized. Was the work don~ when dom~stic morals had been pleaded for, when social companionships were set Ill a true light; when the betrayals of a lax and over-accommodatino- sympathy in public in~rcourse were exposed; when the corruptions growing out of an abuse of love-feasts and extending to the Holy Communion had been faithfully dealt with; when, in addition thereunto, he had expounded the Divine import and sacredness of the Lord's Supper? Was the work done when he had opened the treasures of grace and taught his brethren how the Divine munificence had enriched their souls? Was he content to stop after delineating the correspondence between the bestowments of the Spirit in his multiformity of gifts, and the complexity of the Church as the witness to the Trinity? By no means was the subject exhausted. Specific as he had been-direct, resolute, pungent-how much remained to be said (as we shall see hereafter), to reflect back on what had been said, and bring out lialf-latent meanings of truths stated which the argument, in its direct connections, <lid not exact of his logic at the instant! At this point, then, he introduces a felicitous illustration. It is done in a business-like style. Image it can scarcely be called, since it has no poetic element addressed merely to the resthetic sense, and is quite as much the product of the reason as of the imagination. We have spoken of St. Paul as one who studied the human body and was profoundly interested in considering its present and prospective condition in the light of the Christian re,elation. The illustration here used extends through a large portion of tho chapter, and, as a figure, is for him elaborated with unusual fulness and painstaking. Evidently it is not a creation of the moment, for there is not a mark of sudden impulse. Tracing the analogy between the Church and the human bo<ly, and recog- nizing the Spirit of the earlier creation in this later and more glorious one, the inspired author evinces that delight in similarity of relations which is the infallible ~ign both of high endowment and broad culture, and he proceeds with a quiet and steady gait till the ground has been fully traversed. 1. The human body is an organism. It is "one, and bath many members." By an organism we understand " a whole consisting of parts which exist and work each for all and all for each; in other words, which are reciprocally related as means and end" (Dr. Kling). The principle of life is a principle of organization, weaving a form for itself, shaping that form to itself, and impressing thereupon its own distinctive image. 'l'he principle assumes Yarious organizations-simple in some, complex in others-and, in every case, the life-power is the animating and determinative force. "So also is Christ" (ver. 12). ln the Church, which is his body, Christ is the constituting Power. He is its Life, aud without him it is nothing. Through the Spirit he maintains those operations which impart vitality to all the institutions and agencies of the Church. "By one Spirit are we all baptized into oue body" (yer. 13), _whether." Jews or Gentile~;" such is the almighty energy of the Holy Ghost Ill begettmg vitality and transformmg national and race distinctions into its own likeness, that they aro made one. This is also true of "bond or free." 'l'hc characteristics of individuality as to races and social positions remain, but whatever is incapable of unity is removed and the organism subdues to itself every clement and constituent it adopts. All are made "to drink into one Spirit." Viewed externally, we see Jews and Greeks, bond and free with their peculiarities derived from tbe past and respected as the signs of Pro~idence in the ages preparatory to Christ's advent. A rich and picturesque mosaic is thus presented by the Church. Along with this, the Church is also a type of the future man, from whom all selfish antagonisms have gone and ~vcr whom the sentiment of brotherhood is supreme. 2. 'l'he human body has various CH. xu. 1-31.] THE FIRST Ei'ISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 40i'i