Unity in Diversity (Part 1 of 4)

Music playing Today on Truth for Life Weekend, Alistair Begg teaches us what the Bible means when it talks about us being baptized with one spirit and how that unites us within the body of Christ. One of the things that we're told in creative writing when we go to school is that if we can possibly use similes and metaphors, we will be far more effective in our communication, because to speak in terms of pictures, which graphically illustrate a truth, is helpful to most readers. And it is not surprising to us, then, to discover that when we read the pages of the New Testament, we find that it is littered with metaphor in order to help us understand the instruction that is contained. And this evening, in coming to the twelfth verse of 1 Corinthians 12, we come to arguably the best-known biblical metaphor, certainly in terms of describing the unity of the church—namely, the picture of the body. And if you were taking notes, you would want just to note, first of all, that what we have here is an illustration, and then we'll go on to notice the explanation, and then we'll conclude with some application.

That's how I make an attempt to get through it, and that may be helpful to you. First of all, then, we have this straightforward illustration. The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts, and though all its parts are many, they form one body. The metaphor is straightforward.

It is this. It takes many different parts to make up one body. Those parts inevitably differ from one another, and the fact that they are different from one another in no way diminishes the body's basic unity.

That's the truth. That's the thesis in verse 12. Now, at the same time, it's clearly obvious that Paul is not giving instruction on human anatomy. But his point is made—and this takes us from the illustration itself into the explanation—is made in the second sentence of verse 12, the final six words, if you're using the New International Version. So, he says, it is with Christ. So why does he use the word Christ rather than the word church when he's actually talking about the nature of the church? Well, I think it's fairly obvious that he substitutes the word Christ for the word church in order to impress upon his readers, then and now, that it is impossible to speak about the church apart from Christ. That when we say Christ, we say church. When we say church, we say Jesus. Because when we think it out, how does Christ make himself known in the world today?

The answer is, through his church. So we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. By faith, we are incorporated into Jesus, and we are made members of his body. It is impossible to experience the new birth, the new creation, in terms of 2 Corinthians 5.17, and not to be made part of the body of Christ.

In Christ, in the church. Now, the explanation then continues in verse 13. Going on to amplify this truth, he then writes, For we were all baptized by or with or in one spirit into one body, irrespective of our background, he says. Whether there are racial distinctions among us, whether there are social distinctions among us, the unifying factor is this—we were all baptized with the one Spirit, and we were all made to drink of the one Spirit. That is why, incidentally, any kind of disunity within the body of Christ that is on the basis of superficial things that mark disruption in a culture must never be tolerated.

The background that we have, the income that we have, the school we attended, the color of our skin, our political perspectives, etc., must never be allowed to divide the body of Christ, because there is an intrinsic unity which exists as a result of our having been made part of Christ. Now, verse 13 is not referring to water baptism. When we think of what the New Testament teaches in terms of baptism and water, we know that that is something which follows conversion. It is something that is submitted to according to the command of Christ. What we have here in verse 13 is one of the multivarious ways that the New Testament speaks of our initial Christian experience.

When we think in terms of the common parlance in relationship to Christian testimony, we would perhaps say that we had been converted, some would say that they had been saved, some would say that their sins had been forgiven, some would say that they were born again, some would say this and that, and legitimately we might equally say we were baptized with the Spirit or we were made to drink of the Spirit. It is expressive of our initial encounter in coming to faith. Now, let me illustrate this, first turning you to the book of Romans in chapter 8, and then we'll flip to Galatians.

Just a couple of references. Romans chapter 8, verse 8. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, verse 9, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. So any notion that you may have that it is possible to have Christ and not have the Spirit is not a New Testament notion. It is impossible to be born again of the Spirit of God without being baptized with or in the Holy Spirit and made to drink of that same Spirit.

Galatians and the third chapter, verse 5, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law or because you believe what you heard? He's already said in the opening chapter that he can't believe that people who began in the Spirit would try and continue their Christian life in the flesh. In chapter 5 he speaks of it, in verse 25, in these words, Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. I want to underscore this as carefully as I can this evening.

We're only going to two supplementary sections. We could go all over the place to discover that the New Testament authors take it for granted that God has given their readers in Christ, his Holy Spirit. And it is in this connection that we are to understand the thirteenth verse. This is not something that is unique to a few, but it is universal Christian experience. It is initial Christian experience.

It is written in the past tense, in the aorist tense, actually, to speak of a once-and-for-all event which has abiding, continuing significance. Before going on to describe in verse 14 and following the nature and significance of their diversity from one another in terms of spiritual gifts, he emphasizes the nature of their unity. And the way in which he expresses unity in the body of Christ is by means of this notion of baptism with the Holy Spirit.

Now, for those of us who've been around the block a little bit, we will know that it is somewhat ironic that what some continue to use as a basis for discrimination within the church, Paul uses to establish the great unity which exists within the church. If you have moved around at all in Christian circles amongst different groups and denominations, you may well have come up against those who have asked you the question, Have you asked for, sought, or experienced the baptism in, with, or by, or of the Holy Spirit? And depending on your theological background, you will have answered in a number of ways. Those who ask that question teach that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a post-conversion experience that is unique to some, that is available to all, but not universally experienced within the body of Christ. Now, it is not my purpose to launch into a discourse concerning that, but I want you to know that when you read the New Testament, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the notion of the baptism of the Spirit is nothing other than an initial experience enjoyed by all who are truly placed in Christ. And you, again, as I say to you so often, are sensible people. You must search the Scriptures on your own to see if these things are so, but if you want my guidance, my instruction, my insight, then I want you to know that it is an abuse of Scripture, and it is a misinterpretation of doctrine and theology to teach it as anything other than that.

Now, we'll come back to why some do in a moment or two, but we'll leave it there. Also, it is important for you to notice, and if you have an NIV, you will see that there is a footnote in this thirteenth verse. The preposition—I'm not sure why English translations continue to translate it with the word by, for we were all baptized by one Spirit.

In actual fact, the preposition is a preposition for in or with, not by. So it should really read, For we were all baptized with or in one Spirit. Presumably, the translation is because Paul is stressing the oneness of the Spirit in whom we share, and so the translators are seeking to get that across. But I think they do as a disservice, for this reason—that the Spirit is not the baptizer.

Okay? The Holy Spirit is not the one who does the baptizing. The Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity, is the element in which we are baptized. When people are baptized in this pool here beneath me, there is a baptizer, there is an element, namely water, there is a purpose, namely confession of their faith, and so on. Indeed, when you take the whole picture of baptism in the New Testament throughout Scripture, you discover that there are four parts when baptism takes place. There is the subject of baptism, there is the object of baptism, there is the element with or in which the baptism takes place, and there is the purpose for which baptism is administered. Now, how does that fit with this?

Well, it fits in this way. Jesus is the baptizer. Remember, in the early verses of the Gospels—for example, Matthew chapter 3 and verse 11—John the Baptist says, I baptize you with water, but one who is coming after me will baptize you with or in the Holy Spirit. It will be Jesus, he says, who is the baptizer. So the baptized are, according to this, we all.

All right? The baptizer is Jesus, the baptized is we all. The element, if you like, is the Holy Spirit, for we were all baptized with or in one Spirit, and the purpose of the baptism is incorporation into the body of Christ. Now, if you understand that, you're getting to grips with this fundamental truth, which is very, very important, because if there is lack of clarity here, then there is manifold confusion by the time you get to chapter 14.

And so it is very important that we think it out. It is not the Spirit's baptism. It is Christ's baptism with or in the Holy Spirit that gives us new life and places us into the body when we trust in Christ. So at the risk of belaboring the point ad nauseam, let me say again, it is not possible to be a Christian and not be baptized with the Spirit.

Neither is it possible to have more than one baptism with or in the Spirit. Because it is by means of this one baptism that we are placed into the sphere of the Spirit's power, into a new environment, into a new atmosphere, into a new relationship with others, and all on account of the fact that we have been made members with Christ. We have been united with Christ.

When you think about the way in which the New Testament speaks about our initial experience of Jesus, it is so vast and wide, it is so multivarious. There's so many things simultaneously happening when in repentance and in faith we are placed into Christ. Our sins are forgiven. Our debt is canceled.

Our record is set clear. We are placed into Christ. We are baptized with the Holy Spirit. We are placed within the body.

We are made members of one another. We are seated in the heavenly places. Heaven is now our home. We are no longer living among the dead. We are no longer in darkness. We are now in light.

And so on and so on. And these two phrases here in 1 Corinthians 12, 13—one baptized with the Spirit and two made to drink of the same Spirit—are these expressions, and a Christian has experienced them both. So when we are baptized in water, it is a sign and a seal of our having been baptized with the Spirit. There is no point in being baptized with water unless we have been placed in Christ.

And one of the descriptions of having been placed in Christ is having been immersed in the Spirit and having been made to drink of the same Spirit. And you see, this is the basis of our unity. This is how we can go throughout the whole world and meet people that we've never, ever known in our lives, be united with people that we don't even understand their language. We have no knowledge of their culture. We've got no concept of a million things about them.

That is close to exaggeration. We have no concept of hardly anything about them. And yet our hearts beat with one another. When we kneel down, we sense the unity of what? The Spirit.

Why? Because we were all baptized with one Spirit. We were all made to drink of the one Spirit. Irrespective of our color of our skin or our background or our place of origin or our heritage or whether we had a long lineage of Christian faith or whether we are a first-generation Christian, all of those things are ultimately subservient to this amazing truth of the body of Christ. That having been brought to repentance and to faith, we have been placed into Christ, and we've been given a whole new family.

It's a wonderful truth. Water baptism is an initiatory Christian expression, because Spirit baptism is an initiatory Christian experience. It is not something that comes along the road. God's norm for his people, when you read the New Testament, is this—that by grace, through faith, we enter into the benefits of forgiveness, we're given the gift of the Spirit, we are then baptized in water as a sign of these blessings, and we continue then to be filled with the Spirit of God and to display his fullness by a holy life and a bold testimony. That's normative Christianity.

And anything other than that is not New Testament Christianity. Acts chapter 2 and verse 38—it just comes to mind as I pause—Peter preaches the gospel, the people say, Brothers, what shall we do? And he replies, Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call. People get all tied up in knots over that verse, because they want to fit it all in chronologically. Well, doesn't it say that you do this and then that happens, and aren't you saying that that happens and then this is supposed to happen?

Why is Peter able to compress it in this way? Because in the mind of the apostle, there was no great time lag between any of these things. He says, You repent of your sins, and you will be placed into Christ. Indeed, your very ability to repent is an indication of God's grace to you. And having been placed into Christ, let's get you baptized.

And when you give testimony in your baptism in the water, it will be a testimony to the fact that in repentance and in faith you've been baptized with and in the Holy Spirit, you've been given the Spirit of God to drink, and when you declare, Jesus is Lord, it is an evidence of the fact that you've been brought to that kind of fullness. For the natural man would never say, Jesus is Lord. The natural man is dead in his trespasses and his sins. The natural man has no interest in Jesus. And in our endeavor to systematize all the little bits and pieces in our Western Platonic mindset, we miss something of the freshness and the vitality and the reality that was part and parcel of those early New Testament days. Now, if this that I'm teaching you is true and faithful to the text of Scripture, it begs the question, What are we then to say to those who teach this as a postconversion experience, or to those who testify to it in their lives? For many do. Many of my friends do. And some of you may.

Well, I'm not going to allow myself a major tangential run on this, but I want to say a couple of things. In many cases, it may prove to be nothing more than a matter of semantics, a matter of terminology. Because the reality of our Christian experience is not ultimately deduced on the basis of our ability to theologize it accurately.

That is not an invitation to theological inaccuracy. That is a recognition of the fact that oftentimes our experience precedes our cognitive awareness of what in the world is going on, a la the man who was blind. And the people were pressing him for an explanation, and all he was able to say was, Listen, quit bugging me. All I know is this, and you know it too. I was blind.

Now I can see. He hadn't worked out just exactly how all had worked or how it all happened or what it was all going to mean, but he knew that. And there are some folks who, in their experience of walking with Christ and seeking after Christ, use terminology in different ways. And what they may be referring to when they say that they experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit is nothing other than a very gracious kick in the seat of their pants, moving them out of a time of deep lethargy and uselessness in their Christian lives. They've been living in a time of rebellion, a time of disinterest, a time of indifference. They have not been reading their Bible.

They've had no boldness in their testimony. They have been diminished in their usefulness for Christ, and someone has come along and told them that there is a possibility for them to move beyond that level of experience if they will only encounter what they have on offer. What they have on offer is then explained as the baptism in or with or by the Holy Spirit. And so these people then enter into a discovery of God's blessing, they then theologize it in terms of the phraseology that they've been given, and what they're using is wrong terminology which confuses them and other people, and what they ought to be thankful for is the fact that God in his mercy met them along the journey of their disobedience, gave them a major hug, put them back in the realm of usefulness.

Now that's for some. We're learning from Alistair Begg what the Bible has to say about unity within the diverse body of Christ. We'll hear more next weekend as we listen to part two of this message on Truth for Life weekend with Alistair Begg. Now if you listen to Truth for Life regularly on the weekends you often hear me talk about our mission, which is to teach the Bible with clarity and relevance. This is at the heart of all we do here at Truth for Life. We know that when God's Word is taught directly from Scripture, people will be moved from unbelief to belief, believers will grow in their faith, and the body of Christ will be strengthened within the local church. We're also passionate about recommending to you books that supplement what Alistair is teaching.

And this is the final weekend I'll be talking about our current offer. It's a book titled None Else 31 Meditations on God's Character and Attributes. This is a one month devotional that explores many of the attributes of God's nature, things like his faithfulness, his compassion, his goodness, and his love.

A devotional None Else is a valuable way to spend a few minutes of quality time every day learning more about who God is. Request your copy of the book today when you visit truthforlife.org. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Next weekend, Alistair will be answering a question that people ask him all the time. Why should I join a local church? He gives a two-part answer that you won't want to miss, so be sure to join us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.