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What Does the Apostle Paul Mean When He Says “One Body”?
The Terminology “One Body”
The Apostle Paul uses the two words “one body” eleven times in his epistles. Theologians, teachers, and others have perverted the meaning of the expression, “one body,” through the years, reading into it something not there. They over complicate it to see one of their presuppositions and twist it like a gumby doll.
The word “one” does not always mean “numeric one.” Very often, especially in the New Testament and in Paul’s writings, it means “unified one.” Let me give you an example of numeric one, such as a single or singular person, place, or thing, and then a unified one. One can express unity. The people were one, means they were completely together. I am not a Phillies fan, but if I said the Philadelphia Phillies were one team, I am not saying that there is a single Phillies ball club. I’m saying that the team has unity. That’s how Paul uses the term. It’s obvious he uses it that way.
Usage of “One”
In the English, the word “one” is used 1,967 times in the Bible. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says:
Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
That is a usage of numeric one. He is saying, not a single jot or tittle will pass from the law. That incidentally is the first usage of “one” in the entire New Testament. Luke writes in Acts 19:34:
But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.
This does not mean that this crowd of people had a single voice. They had several voices, but unified voices, so one voice. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 15:6:
That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To the church at Rome to whom Paul wrote, he says, “ye,” referring to its plural members, excluding himself. He says that these many, plural people have “one mind” and “one mouth.” Do you think that only one, single mind and one, single mouth existed in Rome? No. Of course not. Yet, you don’t have people saying that there is a universal, invisible mystical mind or a universal, invisible mystical mouth. Maybe they do in a mind science cult, but this does not exist in the actual, real world.
Usage of “One Body”
Colossians 3:15
Now let’s consider the terminology “one body,” which expresses the unity of each church in its context. I want us to consider Colossians 3:15 first, because it eliminates the concept that “one body” is one universal, invisible body. Paul writes:
And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
The Apostle Paul does use the pronoun “we” sometimes and includes himself, but one should not assume that he is saying that he is in the same one body as his audience. When he uses “ye” here, he excludes himself. He says, “your hearts,” “ye are called,” and “be ye thankful.” He could have phrased all this with “we” in it, but he didn’t. Instead, he says, “ye are called in one body.” If this was singular “one body,” referring to a big universal church to which all believers were members, he should not exclude himself, and yet he does. Why? He is addressing the church at Colossae. The “one body” was their church.
The context of this statement in Colossians 3:15 goes back a long ways to say that the church there is neither Greek nor Jew, bond nor free, etc. In other words, they are now no longer separate tribes, but all one there. Paul says, “be merciful, kind, longsuffering, etc. (v. 12), forbear, forgive, don’t quarrel (v. 13), put on charity, which is a bond (v. 14), so that peace rules in your hearts (v. 15). All these factors lead to unity — in other words, “one body.” Paul instructs them in having a unified body, a church with unity, which God and he both want.
1 Corinthians 12:12
The context of 1 Corinthians 12 is that the church at Corinth has many members and, therefore, many varied offices and gifts. The one Holy Spirit (which is numeric one with an allusion to unity, the one Holy Spirit causes oneness) actually creates this diversity in the church by dividing up or assigning varied spiritual gifts to the members. With this kind of variation, how is there harmony, oneness? Well, first there is one Spirit. He can bring oneness, since He isn’t going to contradict Himself.
As an analogy, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:12:
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
“The body is one.” Here he speaks of the actual human body in a generic sense. “The body” is the human body. Question: Is the singular “the body” here particular or generic or is it an invented usage of the singular, “mystical”? It isn’t particular, because Paul is not speaking of a a particular person’s body. It is generic because every body has members or body parts. Each body on earth has always been one, a defining or true aspect of what it means to be a body. It isn’t a body any more when a finger is over here, an ear is in another zip code, and each toe finds itself in a different county.
The Human Body as a Metaphor
I want to emphasize again. Please pay attention here. “The body” is the human body. Human body. Think anatomy and physiology. The “ankle bone is connected to the leg bone, the leg bone is connected to the knee bone.” The skeleton does not do the skeleton dance if the ankle bone is not in fact connected to the leg bone. All those joints must connect for the body to work in unity. (Take a deep breath.)
What Paul writes actually contradicts the idea of a universal body. Part of a body being a body is proximity. It is all together in one location. “The body” is not a particular human body, but speaks of any and every human body in a generic fashion. Not only is the human body one, but the human body has many members or body parts. “Members” means “body parts.” Paul uses the human body to illustrate the unity and diversity of a church. Even though the body has many members, it is still one, that is, it is still unified. Every member works together. They must because it is one body. This is not teaching a universal church.
Not Singular One, But Unified One
For being such a prominent doctrine among evangelicals, Paul doesn’t ever mention a universal church. If it existed, he could have easily clarified it. What universal church proponents do is take these “one body” passages and the like, which are unity passages, and they read into them a universal church. This messes up the interpretation or meaning of the entire passage by forcing this non-existent concept into the passage. People will very often do almost whatever it takes to get their doctrine into the Bible, that isn’t there on its own.
When Paul implies, “Christ is one body,” there is a sense of “numeric one,” but it still communicating “unified one” as the primary usage here. Body parts still unify, still operate as one, function together, because of the oneness, the unity of the body. The church at Corinth divided over its gifts. Get this. The church at Corinth divided over its gifts. It’s like a body dividing over its various body parts. That doesn’t happen with a body even though it has various body parts. It still works together. That is what Paul is saying!!
Paul is saying nothing about a universal, mystical body of believers. He is talking about the unity of the church at Corinth and in a generic fashion, the unity of every church. Even though each church has many members, it is one body. That is the reality of a body. Each body is one.
People Will Still Argue
I really do assume that people will still argue over this, because their universal body concept is so precious to them for whatever reason. They want to keep that Platonic “all believers” concept intact. It has no practical ramification at all and doesn’t fit what Paul is teaching, but they still call it the prime meaning of these unity texts. While there is no biblical unity (like that of a human body) between all professing believers, they still begrudgingly use it. Meanwhile, they ruin what’s in the text itself to help out a church. Churches lose an important unity text to preserve a false doctrine.
Why do people need to keep this false concept of a universal body? I believe there are a lot of reasons. It isn’t grammar or syntax or the plain meaning of the text. No, it is something outside of the Bible. The chief reason, I believe, and this is an opinion, but with a large sample size, is that people can live freely without constraint to an actual church. They become a free-floating entity beholden to no one and without authority. It is a good vehicle to take for rebellion. It means not submitting to anything but a mystical Christ, who they shape into the Jesus they want Him to be.
I’m going to stop here, because I believe you get the message. This is what each of Paul’s “one body” texts are about. They are about the unity of individual churches. They all happen the same way, just like the unity of a human body in the body metaphor that Paul uses.
Debunking of Nine Marks Dual Church View: Both Universal and Local Churches, Part One
On 8/25/2022, the organization Nine Marks, started by Pastor Mark Dever of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, published on its website an article written by Jonathan Leeman, the editorial director of Nine Marks, entitled, “The Church: Universal and Local” (Click on the article to compare this analysis with the post). Nine Marks, I believe, wants to defend “local” because that is the main emphasis of Nine Marks. In the articles I have read by Nine Marks, they want to emphasize the meaning of “assembly” for ekklesia. That is enough to get major push back from the rest of evangelicalism.
Despite its doctrine of the church, local, Nine Marks teaches a universal church in the above article also as its position on the church, so a dual church view. Is there both a universal church and a local church? This post will begin an assessment of Leeman’s article as to its ecclesiological veracity.
In his first paragraph, the introduction, Leeman provides his definition for a universal church, a contradiction in terms, and for a local church. He calls the “universal church” “a heavenly and eschatological assembly.” You have to admire the point of consistency from Leeman with the meaning of ekklesia in his definition. He sticks with “assembly” through the essay. However, if it is an assembly, how could it be “universal”? Something universal does not and can not assemble. Leeman forces the definition to fit a catholic presupposition.
In Leeman’s summary, the second paragraph, he says the “New Testament envisions two kinds of assemblies.” I can’t argue against an assembly in heaven. Saints will assemble in heaven (cf. Hebrew 12:23). The church is not just any assembly though. The New Testament uses ekklesia to refer to something other than the church, and the King James translates it “assembly,” referring to a group of people gathered together, not a church (Acts 19:32, 39, 41). An assembly in heaven, the King James also calls “an assembly,” because it isn’t a church.
I’ve heard the heavenly assembly called a “church in prospect.” Leeman doesn’t use that terminology, but he takes the essence of that and stretches it into something mystical and for today. He calls salvation the membership for the universal church. All the saints will not be in “heaven,” actually the new heaven and the new earth, until the eternal state. The Bible has terminology for all saved people: the family of God and the kingdom of God. What occurs in heaven is not an ecclesiological gathering. The heavenly assembly does not function as a New Testament assembly.
The practical ramification of a “universal church,” Leeman explains, is “a local church that partners with other churches.” Leeman knows that nowhere does an English translation call the church a “local church.” Every church is local. Assemblies are always local. Churches should partner with other churches, but that isn’t a universal church. Those are still assemblies partnering with other assemblies of like faith and practice.
In his section, “Two Uses of the Word ‘Church’,” Leeman utilizes Matthew 16:18 and Matthew 18:17, the only two usages of ekklesia in the Gospels and both by Jesus. He says the first is universal and the second is local. Since no assembly is universal, he’s wrong on Matthew 16:18. An analysis of every usage of ekklesia by Jesus, most in Revelation 2 and 3, and over twenty times, every one is obviously local. Good hermeneutics or exegesis understands Matthew 16:18 like all the other times Jesus used ekklesia, where Jesus said, “my church.”
Jesus’ ekklesia is still an ekklesia, not something scattered all over the world, but still an assembly. When He calls it “my ekklesia,” Jesus distinguishes it from other governing assemblies. People in that day already understood the concept of a town meeting, a governing assembly. Jesus rules through His assembly and gives it His authority. Ekklesia was also the Greek word translated for the Hebrew congregation of Israel, the assembly in the Old Testament.
Leeman attempts to illustrate his dual church doctrine with two examples from the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:18 and 1 Corinthians 12:28.
For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. (11:18)
And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. (12:28)
Leeman says that 11:18 must be local and 12:28 must be universal. Leeman fails to mention a syntactical structure in Greek and English, either the particular or generical singular noun. Singular nouns have either a particular or generic usage. Singular nouns must be one or the other. 11:18 is an example of a particular singular noun. 12:28 is an example of a generic singular noun. The latter speaks of the church as an institution, representing all churches.
Ephesians 5:25 is a good example of the generic use of the singular noun.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
If there is a universal church, then there must be a universal husband and a universal wife. All of these singular nouns are examples of the generic singular noun. “The husband” is still a husband in one particular place or location. There is no mystical or platonic husband. This is how Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 12:28. If the church in 12:28 is universal, then Paul excluded himself from salvation in 1 Corinthians 12:27, the previous verse, when he writes:
Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.
He says concerning the church at Corinth, “ye are the body of Christ,” excluding himself. When Paul uses the body analogy, he means something local. All bodies are local. All body parts belong to one particular body, not spread out all over the planet.
Leeman assumes without proving. He does not prove a universal church. He assumes it and then he sees it places in the New Testament where it isn’t. His conclusions do not follow from his premises. In his section on “Universal Church,” being “God’s people” in 1 Peter 2:10 and adopted into God’s family in Romans 8:15 are not allusions to a church or “the” church.” These are salvation terms, not ecclesiological ones.
All 118 usages of ekklesia in the New Testament are an assembly either used as a particular singular noun or a generic singular noun. An ekklesia is always local. In a few instances, the assembly is something other than a church, but when it is used for the church, it is always local. That’s what ekklesia means.
To Be Continued
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