Ix The Church As The Body Of Christ

IX

THE CHURCH

AS THE BODY OF CHRIST

SECTION 59. VARplērōma)IOUS VIEWPOINTS AND PROBLEMS

The most typical description of the church in Paul is that of the body of Christ. Although the idea that underlies this designation certainly occurs elsewhere in the New Testament¹ — one need only think of the figure of the vine and the branches in John 15 — nevertheless the qualification "body of Christ" is typically Pauline. In general it gives a further explication of the significance of the church as the people of God. It describes the christological mode of existence of the church as the people of God. It speaks of the special bond with Christ that the church has as the people of God and the new Israel.

There is a bewildering number of conceptions concerning the significance of "body of Christ" as a designation of the church. At first glance it is even difficult to form a clear idea of all these conceptions and to give a useful classification of them. This holds in particular for the development of the investigation that has taken place in recent years both from the Protestant and especially from the Roman Catholic side, and in which scholars have attempted with a great deal of acumen and with the aid of all manner of materials from contemporary Judaism as well as from the Greek world to arrive at a revision, modification, or clarification of earlier insights. Although it is not possible within the framework of our inquiry to describe and assess the history and development of this investigation² at all completely, nevertheless for a correct insight into what is before us in this chapter it does seem indispensable to go somewhat more deeply into these developments.

Generally speaking, the qualification of the church as the body of Christ is a denotation of the special, close relationship and communion that exist between Christ and his church. To be sure, some have been of the opinion — as will appear still further in handling the relevant texts — that in this designation it is not so much a matter of the communion between Christ and the church as it is of the relationship of believers to one another.³ Accordingly they have appealed for this to the manner in which in the Greek world, for example, communal life in the state and society was spoken of under the figure of the body. However, most scholars are of the opinion that Paul's meaning is by no means exhausted with this social or practical interpretation of the concept "body of Christ." It qualifies not only the fellowship of believers, but primarily the nature of the fellowship between the church and Christ himself. The questions that arise time and again are therefore these: in what sense is this fellowship qualified by this idea? how is one to take the word "body" here? and what leads Paul to make use of just the word body in denoting this relationship?

If one examines the answers that are given to these queries, in the main one may distinguish between two kinds of conceptions, namely, those which understand the qualification body of Christ in a figurative, collective sense and those which take it in a real, personal sense. In the working out of each of these two interpretations large and substantial differences again reveal themselves. Still, the distinction between (A) the metaphorical-collective and (B) the real-personal explanations of the words "body of Christ" seems the most serviceable for the exegetical approach to the whole problem.

(A) The view that takes the expression "body of Christ" in a metaphorical sense, at least in the first instance, is the more traditional, both in Roman Catholic and in Protestant exegesis. Its point of departure is that the qualification "body of Christ" is a figurative representation of the vital communion of the church with Christ. "Body" is therefore not the real, historical, or glorified body of Christ, but the church as fellowship. On the nature of the fellowship thus metaphorically described there are, also in regard to this figurative view of "body," again profound differences, in particular between (1) the Protestant and (2) the Roman Catholic interpretations.

(1) So far as the former is concerned, it is characteristic of the traditional conception that body of Christ is here exclusively understood of the pneumatic mode of existence of the church on the ground of its communion with the exalted Christ. It is the Spirit who constitutes this communion. The church is the body of Christ as the fellowship in which he dwells by his Spirit and which he by his Spirit enlivens and fills.⁴ In this context the body of Christ is accordingly often spoken of as the invisible church and the mystical union between Christ and the church.⁵

(2) In traditional Roman Catholic exegesis the church as the body of Christ is not thought of in the first place pneumatically, but as the fruit of the union of the church with the divine-human nature of Christ. Especially determinative for this is the manner in which, according to the Roman Catholic view, the church receives in the eucharist a share in the body of the Lord. All this has the effect that the church is spoken of as the body of Christ in a very "massive" fashion, and great emphasis is laid on the identity of Christ and his church-body. The church can be called the body of Christ because in the church, as it were, Christ receives an extension of his existence, so that this united mode of existence of Christ and his church can be denoted as the "mystical" or "collective Christ." Even so in the traditional conception the description of the church as body of Christ, notwithstanding this identity, continues as a description to bear a metaphorical character. The church is indeed united with the personal body of the Lord, understood in the literal sense (e.g., in the eucharist), yet it is itself not that body, but it is that body as the totality of those with whom Christ thus makes himself one.⁶

Therefore, however important the differences are in this traditional figurative view of "body of Christ," particularly between the Protestant and the Roman Catholic interpreters, it cannot be said that these go back to a fundamentally different interpretation of the terminology, i.e., of the word "body." For both start from the collective significance of the body as the designation of the organic whole of believers in their union with Christ. The difference lies in the manner in which the nature of this union is understood.

(B) In recent years serious criticism has been leveled against this traditional, metaphorical interpretation of the concept "body of Christ," from both the Protestant and the Roman Catholic sides. So far as the Protestant interpretation is concerned, this criticism is directed first of all toward the one-sided pneumatic character that was ascribed to the body of Christ. On the other hand, contemporary criticism of the traditional Roman Catholic view is especially opposed to the collective extension Christ's existence is supposed to have received in the church as his body. Recent Roman Catholic exegetes can discover nothing of this in Paul. It is remarkable, however, that this twofold criticism, however different in point of view and result, is one in that it has gone over from the figurative to the real, personal conception of "body of Christ," that is to say, body taken in the sense of the historical and glorified body of Christ. We want here also to go somewhat further into (1) the newer Protestant and (2) the Roman Catholic view.

(1) For the former it is especially E. Percy who has become representative in his frequently cited work Der Leib Christi.⁷The point of departure for Percy's criticism lies in that the traditional conception explains the expression body of Christ on the analogy of an anthropology understood in a dichotomistic sense. The church is the body of Christ because Christ constitutes it by his Spirit and enlivens it by his indwelling. This is a representation of the relationship of body and soul (spirit) that in Percy's opinion is entirely foreign to Paul. For this reason neither can it hold as the principle of interpretation for the designation of the church as the body of Christ..

However, the material objection urged by Percy weighs no less heavily, that with this conception the communion between Christ and the church denoted by "body of Christ" is understood primarily or exclusively as a spiritual or "mystical" union constituted by the Spirit (as indwelling and enlivening force). It should be maintained against this "mystical" conception, however, that in Paul this unity, as also finds expression in the formulae "in Christ" and "with Christ," in the first place bears a redemptive-historical character in that the church ("the many") has been comprehended in Christ, and it is this "objective" solidarity which above all makes the church the body of Christ.⁸ Thereby the spiritual indwelling of Christ in the church maintained by the Spirit has not been denied or become of less significance; but, as we have already been able to demonstrate in detail, the objective, redemptivehistorical unity of the "all in One" lies at the root of this spiritual communion. And if, as Percy has shown, this unity also constitutes the point of departure for the qualification "body of Christ," it is clear that one cannot understand this on the analogy of the idea of the human body inhabited by the soul or animated by the spirit.

It is another question how with this view set forth by Percy the use of the designation "body of Christ" is then to be explained. Percy himself has here arrived at a very radical, in our view also very debatable, solution, namely, by no longer taking the term "body of Christ" in the metaphorical, but in the literal sense, as the designation of the historical body of Christ that died on the cross and rose on the third day. Proceeding on the idea that the church was comprehended in Christ's death and resurrection and thus may be regarded as incorporated into him, it would also coincide with Christ's bodily existence in which he suffered and died for it. And so Percy comes to the conclusion that this body of Christ identical with the church is fundamentally no other body than that which died on the cross and rose on the third day.⁹ It is undeniable that both terminologically and materially a leap is made here. That Christ has suffered in his body for his own as their substitute and representative and that in him they have been included in that, have died and been buried with him and "through his body" have been put to death (Rom. 7:4), is not the same as that they themselves now are his body in the literal and historical sense of the word. For not only is "have been included in" not the same as "identical with," but also the idea that in his body Christ represents his own is not reversible in the sense that his own would now likewise represent that body. Transitions take place here and conclusions are drawn that, however closely they sometimes seem to approach the Pauline usage, nevertheless are not found in Paul himself, and cannot be accepted as legitimate conclusions from what Paul in fact says.¹⁰

We may go on to note that the breakthrough from the figurative, collective to the literal, personal interpretation of the body of Christ is a frequently occurring phenomenon in the more recent literature.¹¹ One meets with it also, for example, in the work of J. A. T. Robinson, The Body. "The leap" is made here again, if in a way somewhat different from Percy. Robinson starts from the words of institution of the Lord's Supper, which also occur in Paul. When Jesus says "This is my body . . . my blood," he is said thereby to transmit himself ("his actual self, his life and personality") to his disciples. And Robinson's conclusion is: "Insofar then as the Christian Community feeds on this body and blood, it becomes the very life and personality of the risen Lord."¹² He acknowledges: "There is a jump here, from 'feeding on' to 'becoming,' which is not explained." And Paul is the only one who makes this jump. This "extraordinary leap from the Eucharist to the Ecclesia itself as the extension of Christ's human personality" Robinson thinks himself able to explain, however, with an appeal to Paul's experience on the road to Damascus. He saw there the risen Lord in his glorified body, who asked him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" and to Paul's question: "Who art thou, Lord?" responded: "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." Paul's apostleship was therefore — thus Robinson — based on "the revelation of the resurrection body of Christ, not as an individual, but as the Christian Community."¹³ One may seriously doubt, however, whether this can in fact hold as an explanation for "the leap" and as an answer to the question why — as Robinson puts it — "the Body of Christ inevitably meant for him [Paul] what it did." For the fact that in these pronouncements Jesus identifies himself with his church does not in the least signify that therefore the church can be denoted as his (glorified) body. One would then have to reach the conclusion that on the road to Damascus in Jesus the church also appeared to Paul, and that not as an earthly, but as a heavenly reality. But with that we would unquestionably go beyond all the bounds of the sense of the words of Acts 26:14ff.; 9:4ff.; 22:7ff.¹⁴

(2) However little justification this "leap" of the identification of the church with the body of Christ taken in a literal sense may have, still this explanation given from the non-Catholic side has become a base for a whole series of newer Roman Catholic writings that — in divergence from the traditional Roman Catholic explanation — likewise have come to enter a plea for this literal and personal meaning. To be mentioned here in particular is the work,¹⁵ which has given leadership in this respect, of the Louvain professor L. Cerfaux, who has been followed by such other Catholic authors as P. Benoit, W. Goossens, J . Havet, et al.¹⁶

According to Cerfaux a development has taken place in Paul with respect to the church as body of Christ. The point of departure is the comparison, borrowed from Greek thought, of the church with the body, the members of which stand in organic relation to each other (1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12). It was no more than natural, however, that under Paul's pen this formula "should grow more involved."¹⁷ Because Paul infers the unity of the church from the eucharist, that is to say, from having a common share in the bread as the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10), at a given moment he combines this body of Christ with "the body" of the Greek simile, in order subsequently to substitute the former for the latter: the one body of the Hellenistic formula denotes the one body of Christ. And that body, as appears from the text of the Supper, is his "real and personal body." Consequently this body in the literal sense is the source and central point of unity in the Christian world: "Identified with this body, they are one. Among themselves, they are all 'one' by reference to the body of Christ."¹⁸

In the Prison Epistles this development in Paul's thinking is carried further. "It could be said that the word sōma fascinated Paul."¹⁹ While in Romans and I Corinthians he bases the fact that the church is one body on communion with the crucified body of Christ in the eucharist, in the Prison Epistles the glorified Christ and the glorified body of Christ define the essence of the church. It is the glorified Christ who fills the church with his presence, and it is he whose body the church is now called in so many words (Eph. 1:22ff.; Col. 1:24): "a new formula, one which is possible only on the level of the epistles of the captivity."²⁰ Accordingly it is here that the identification (Robinson's "leap"!) takes place. The glorified body of Christ in heaven is the dwelling place of the fullness of his Godhead. Because the church may identify itself with this body, it receives in turn the fullness of the divine life. "In the mystical order nothing is opposed to a true identification of the Church with the glorious body of Christ. The Church and Christ are the same body in virtue of a mystical identification of the church with the risen body."²¹

The difference between this newer Roman Catholic conception of the church as the body of Christ and the traditional is, that the "body of Christ" is no longer understood in a metaphorical and collective, but in a "real" and "personal" sense.²² Undoubtedly in both Roman Catholic conceptions the unity expressed rests on the church's participation in the historical divine-human nature of Christ. Whereas in the traditional view, however, this unity is thought of as a union of Christ with the body (conceived of collectively) of the church, and Christ thus in his church receives an extension of his existence, which has indeed been denoted as the mystical or collective Christ, the newer view will know nothing of such a collective conception of the "body of Christ." According to it, in this qualification of the church it is precisely the point that the union is not of Christ with the collectivum of the church, but, conversely, of the church with the personal body of Christ. The special feature of this exegesis therefore lies in this, that it regards the identification of the church and the body of Christ from the viewpoint of the personal (historical and glorified) body of Christ, and not from that of the church as a collective body intended in the metaphorical sense.

Without going further into all the modifications²³ of this new conception and into the attempts in the Roman Catholic exegetical and dogmatic literature to combine it with the traditional conception (maintained in the encyclical Mystici Corporis of Pius XII, 1953!),²⁴ it can thus be determined in general that so far as the identification of the church with the body of Christ taken in the literal sense is concerned, it is in very close agreement with the exegesis of Percy and Robinson, even though the "leap" (of this identification) for all these authors certainly does not have the same dogmatic background and significance. It is not our purpose here, however, to give a further description of all these details, but rather to return to the exegesis of the Pauline texts. It is evident from the above that in so doing, among others, the following questions arise:

(a) Is the expression "body" as designation of the church in Paul's epistles (or a part of them) to be understood only as a comparison or metaphor that elucidates mutual relationships within the church?

(b) Is this expression, understood of the relationship between Christ and his church, to be taken in a literal or metaphorical sense?

(c) If one is to start from the metaphorical view, then what is to be understood by the unity of Christ and his church expressed thereby?

(d) Is it possible to point out or explain the origin of this Pauline mode of expression? This last question will at the same time bring us into contact with the gnostic and Jewish methods of interpretation, which one encounters in the more recent literature.

SECTION 60. "BODY" AND "BODY OF CHRIST" (ROMANS AND 1 CORINTHIANS)

It has rightly been observed in all the thorough discussions on the significance of "body of Christ" as definition of the essence of the church that Paul's pronouncements with respect to it, at least so far as Romans and 1 Corinthians are concerned, above all have a clear paraenetic purport.²⁵ In Romans 12:3ff. believers are admonished that everyone is to know his own place in the church as a whole, and this is elucidated with the figure of the body in which are many members, but in which every member does not have the same function. In this way the church, too, is to know itself: we as many are one body in Christ, but individually members one of another (v. 5). And what follows shows that believers must conduct themselves according to that rule by each being content with his own gift and useful in it. The still more elaborate "bodypericope" of 1 Corinthians 12:14ff, is to the same effect. There, too, it is a question of the many members (and functions) of the one body. The illustration then takes on the character of a parable: "if the foot said, 'because I am not the hand...,' and if the ear said," etc., whereupon the true nature of the body is expounded in its unity and diversity, with continuous indirect application to the church (vv. 15-27). In these pericopes it is therefore beyond question the mutual unity (and diversity) of the church that is elucidated and commended under the figure of the human body. Paul's argumentation here is clearly reminiscent of the corresponding figurative usage in other Hellenistic writers, among whom some, likewise in parabolic form borrowed from the functions of the body, throw light on the necessary mutual cooperation within a specific community.²⁶

There can thus be no doubt but that in applying the name "body of Christ" to the church the organic unity of the church within itself played a not unimportant part, and that this application also has an exceedingly practical and paraenetic significance. On the other hand, it is highly superficial to suppose that in some or in all of the epistles of Paul this idea of the body is restricted to the mutual unity and diversity of believers,²⁷and that the addition "of Christ" is then to be taken only as a qualifying genitive, in the sense of "belonging to Christ," "the Christian" body, or something of that sort.²⁸ The real question may even be said to be whether Paul's qualification of the church as the body of Christ took its point of departure in such a general conception or figurative usage with respect to certain parts of human society and only from thence acquired deeper dimensions.²⁹ The concept "body" in Paul's thinking occupies in various respects such an important place³⁰ that the reverse is more natural, namely, that at the root of this metaphorical language applied to mutual relationships in the church there is a deeper concept of the church as body of Christ. This is not only a reasoning from probability, but also appears from the structure of Paul's argumentation. For he does not rise from the relationships within the church 371 (as body) to the relation of the church to Christ, but reasons just the other way around: because the church is the body of Christ, therefore it is to conduct itself within as "body," and the foot must not say: "because I am not the hand," etc.

This holds immediately for the familiar pronouncements in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. In Romans 12:4ff. it is said that as in one body we have many members, but all the members do not have the same function, so also as many we are one body in Christ, but individually members one of another. That the church is one body and is to conduct itself as such has its ground therefore in the fact that "the many" are one body "in Christ." Similarly it is said in 1 Corinthians 12:12ff. that as the body is one and has many members... so is (it) also (with) Christ ( houtōs kai ho Christos). Although we have to do with an abridged mode of expression, it is certainly clear that Paul here again does not infer that the church is the body from its own existence as community, but precisely from Christ and from the bond that joins the church to him. The significance of this reference to Christ is none other than that which is expressed in the recapitulatory words of 1 Corinthians 12:27: "Now you are the body of Christ."

The central question, then, is what is intended by this expression "body of Christ." We concentrate first on the data from the "principal letters," not in order to introduce a division between these and the Prison Epistles or a priori to assume a development in Paul's ideas, but because the representation in Ephesians and Colossians is complicated by the fact that in them there is not only mention of the body of Christ, but also of Christ as the Head of the body.

There is a clear indication for the meaning of the apostle at the very outset in the words just cited from Romans 12:5: so we (as the) many are one body in Christ.³¹ Both the characteristic expression "the many" and the definitive "in Christ" are borrowed from the familiar terminology that denotes the many as having been included in the one, the church as being represented by Christ. The distinguishing feature of the idea of "body," therefore, is that these many in virtue of this common belonging to Christ form in him a new unity with each other. They are not each one individually, but as a corporate unity, all together in him. The specific character of the qualification thus lies in placing in the forefront the new unity that "the many" form in Christ. But the constitutive factor of this unity is in the many having been included "in Christ." It is therefore on this idea, so fundamental for Paul's preaching,³² that the conception of the church as the one body in Christ, or, as it is put in 1 Corinthians 12:27, as the body of Christ,³³ now rests.

With this, then, the view has been refuted that the idea of the body of Christ rests on the pneumatic indwelling of Christ in his church. The church then, on the analogy of anthropological dichotomy, is thought of³⁴as the organ that is "enlivened" by Christ and thus is joined into a unity and bound together. Yet notwithstanding the objection that Paul does not think dichotomistically and the term "body" does not for him denote only the external and material organization of man to be brought to life by the soul or the spirit, but man himself (including his "soul"),³⁵ it is unmistakably apparent from the above terminology that the one body is not conceived in the first instance as a pneumatic but (we may perhaps say) as a redemptive-historical, "objective" unity. As believers, by virtue of their being-of-Christ, belong to the one seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:29; cf. v. 16), so are they also, if of Christ, his members and together his one body. As we shall see still further, the pneumatic is undoubtedly of paramount importance in the further realization of this unity of the body. But as we have already been able to ascertain in another connection,³⁶ the sequence in this conception is nevertheless not: Christ ------> the Spirit ------> the body, but rather: Christ ------> the body-in-Christ ------> the Spirit.

The correct translation and exegesis of 1 Corinthians 12:13 are of particular importance for what engages us here: "for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink with one Spirit." The pronouncement serves as a further confirmation of the preceding paraenetic exposition, that with all the diversity of gifts one is yet always to keep in view the unity of the Spirit. To that end the apostle now points in verses 12 and 13 to the unity lying "behind" this unity of the Spirit, the unity of the body, and he reminds the church of the moment of their baptism as the incorporation into the body of Christ ("baptized into one body"). The expression does not say that the unity of the body comes into being by baptism, in the sense of: "so that we are of one body,"³⁷ or: "in order together to form one body."³⁸ Rather, the term employed here—"to baptize into" (baptizein eis) — denotes that the one baptized is brought into relation with an already existing person or unity (cf. 1 Cor. 10:2; Gal. 3:27); this means therefore incorporation into an already existing³⁹ body, namely, the communion of those who have been comprehended in and baptized into Christ. Hence the Spirit, too, is not thought of here as the factor constituting the body (so that one would have to translate: "by one Spirit"⁴⁰), but as the gift in which believers share in virtue of their incorporation into the body. For to be in Christ, to belong to his body, means to be in the Spirit (Rom. 8:9),⁴¹ to have been brought under the rule of the Spirit. In this train of thought it is not the Spirit who incorporates into the body by means of baptism, but, just the reverse, incorporation by baptism means being baptized with the Spirit of Christ. This is also evident from the following expression in 1 Corinthians 12:13 (which removes all uncertainty with respect to the exegesis of this passage): "and we were all made to drink with one Spirit." Whether one still chooses to understand this being made to dr ink of baptism⁴² or — in our view⁴³ with more reason — of the Lord's Supper,⁴⁴ it is clear that the Spirit is not intended here as the Author of the body, but as the gift in which all participate by virtue of their belonging to the one body of Christ.

The same thought underlies the remarkable and profound warning against fornication in 1 Corinthians 6:15ff.: one may not make the members of Christ the members of a prostitute. For he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body (one flesh) with her. But he who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit with him. To be a member of Christ's body means to be one Spirit with him, to share in and be governed by his Spirit. As a member of Christ's body he must allow himself to be guided by the Spirit, and cannot at the same time be one body with a prostitute. Here again fellowship with the Spirit is inferred from that with the body, and not the reverse. If one asks what is the basis of being a member of Christ and the resultant being a "temple" of the Spirit, a clear answer is given in what follows: "And you are not your own, for you were bought with a price" (vv. 19, 20). To be of Christ, to be a member of his body, rests on the fact that he has once appropriated his own to himself. Therefore believers are also one Spirit with him, as belonging to him and as members of his body. For where the Lord is, and where his body is, there his Spirit is also (Rom. 8:9ff; 2 Cor. 3:18).

This brings us finally to the passage that has played (and still plays) a special role in relation to this subject, and which can serve in a certain sense as a touchstone for the results we have reached so far, the familiar pronouncement on the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 10:16ff.

As we have seen, in this pronouncement of 1 Corinthians 10:16, 17, various interpreters see the transition (or as Robinson terms it: the leap) to the identification of the church with the historical and glorified body of the Lord in the literal sense of the word. For as Paul first says that the bread is the communion with the body of Christ and a little further along that the church because it partakes of the one bread is therefore one body, so — this is the conclusion or the leap — this body must be the same as the first mentioned, i.e., the body of Christ in the literal, historical, and glorified sense of the word.⁴⁵

Yet it is our conviction that in this way one makes a tremendous mistake and so completely misinterprets Paul's ideas. For regardless of what has already been said about this leap (in thought), this conclusion also founders on the significance that (communion in) "the blood and the body of Christ" have here. It is not the (historical) body of Christ that is herewith described, which one can then identify with the glorified body,⁴⁶ that is to say, with Christ himself in his humiliation and exaltation or with his personality.⁴⁷ In this double connection — communion with the blood and communion with the body — it is precisely a question of a very specific significance and function of this historical blood and body of Christ. The words refer clearly to the institution of the Lord's Supper (as may also appear from a comparison with 1 Corinthians 11:23) and will therefore have to be understood in harmony with it. That is to say that body and blood here denote the body once surrendered in death and the blood of the Lord shed as atoning blood. "Blood" and "body" are not therefore a general description of Christ's person on earth or in heaven, but call to mind, as sacrificial terminology,⁴⁸ his voluntary self-surrender in death. Christ gives his own a share in that sacrifice when he gives them his body and blood to eat and to drink,⁴⁹ and it is this sharing in Christ's sacrifice that Paul — in view also of the whole context, which speaks of sacrificial meals, Greek as well as Jewish — intends to express by the words "communion in the blood and in the body of Christ" (cf. 1 Cor. 11:26).⁵⁰

But from this follows the absolute impossibility in one way or another of identifying the church with this historical blood and body of Christ. Regardless still of the leap in thought from "communion in" the blood and body to "being" the body (and blood?) of Christ, one is faced with a completely absurd notion were he obliged to identify the church with the self-surrender and self-sacrifice of the Lord denoted in this way — by blood and body. When in verse 17 it is said of the church therefore: "because the bread is one, we [the] many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread," it is here — in precisely the same manner in which "the many" and "the one body" are spoken of in Romans 12:5 — the unity of the church that is denoted in virtue of its common share in the one bread and therein⁵¹ in the sacrifice made for it by Christ. That there is mention here of "body" in a twofold sense is unmistakable, namely, first of the body with the blood of Christ surrendered in death and then of the church described as the one body.⁵² It also makes a great deal of sense in this context because not only is there a warning given to the strong that they are to remain aware of the incompatibility of Christ's body and blood with the sacrifice of idols, but also that they are not to lose sight of the obligations they have toward the weak as fellow-members of Christ's church (cf. vv. 23, 33).

On the ground of all that has been said above we are now able to form a clear conception of the sense in which in Romans and 1 Corinthians Paul speaks of the church as the body of Christ, as that occurs in the most explicit sense in 1 Corinthians 12:27, where in conclusion he says: "Now you are the body of Christ and members each for his part." In so doing we can mark off our view with respect to the explanations we pointed out above. In summary, the following answer can already be given to the questions resulting from that survey of opinion.

(a) The designation of the church as the body of Christ does not intend in the first place to qualify its mutual unity and diversity, but to denote its unity in and with Christ.

(b) This unity of the church with Christ thus qualified has its real ground neither in the spiritual indwelling of Christ in the church, nor in the thought that the Spirit constitutes the communion between Christ and the church, but in the church's belonging to Christ in the redemptive-historical sense, in the inclusion of "the many" in the one.

(c) In virtue of this common belonging to and inclusion of "the many" in Christ, individual believers are qualified as members of Christ and the church as his body. That the church should thereby be identified with the historical and glorified body of Christ is in no way evident in the passages we have examined. Insofar as the church as body is related to the communion with the blood and body of Christ exercised in the Lord's Supper, this rests on its common share in the sacrifice made for it by Christ and in no way on such a communion with the historical and glorified body of Christ as would make it this body. The qualification of the church as the "body of Christ," therefore, clearly has a figurative, metaphorical significance, however real and literal the unity and communion with Christ expressed thereby is.

(d) As the church's being appropriated by Christ and included in Christ is not restricted to the redemptive-historical aspect, but also works itself out sacramentally and pneumatically,⁵³ so the believer's incorporation into and belonging to the body of Christ is represented by baptism and the Lord's Supper; and so the church can only reveal itself as the one body of Christ in virtue of the gift of the Holy Spirit given by him to his body.

(e) The question as to why Paul denotes the unity of the church in Christ thus understood specifically with the name "body" has not yet been answered in the above discussion. It can already be ascertained that a reference to the current Hellenistic imagery in which certain social or political communities are compared with a body does not provide an adequate explanation. For believers do not together constitute one body because they are members of one another, but because they are members of Christ, and thus are one body in him (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 6:15). Just as little can this mode of speech be explained on the analogy of an anthropology conceived in a dichotomistic sense. The question remains therefore whether and how terminologically one can further elucidate and "place" this metaphorical designation of the church as the one body comprehended in Christ and belonging to Christ. In order to answer this question we shall first have to examine the remainder of the materials.

SECTION 61. BODY AND HEAD (EPHESIANS AND COLOSSIANS)

In the epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians the idea of the church as the body of Christ receives a still further unfolding and elaboration. It is evident especially in these epistles that this qualification of the church pertains to the fixed substance of Pauline ecclesiology. Furthermore, along with all the fundamental similarity with Romans and 1 Corinthians an important distinction also appears, namely, that here Christ is repeatedly called the Head of the church or the Head of the body, something that does not occur within the framework of the body pronouncements in Romans and 1 Corinthians.

What a fixed "technical" significance the qualification "body" has acquired here may he shown in a great many ways. Not only is the church again and again simply called the body of Christ (Eph. 1:23; 4:13), and believers his members (Eph. 5:30), but "body" as a designation of the church is also used here in an absolute sense, whether or not further explained with the words: (which is) "his church" (Col. 1:18, 24; Eph. 4:4; Col. 3:15; 2:19). The peculiar expression in Ephesians 3:6 is typical of this pattern, where it is said of the gentiles that they, in addition to being fellow heirs, are "fellow body" (syssōma) and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus.

The basic thought in Ephesians and Colossians is therefore the same as that in Romans and 1 Corinthians: the church is the one body in virtue of what Christ has accomplished for it and in virtue of its having been comprehended in him when he once suffered and died for it. This finds clear expression in the well-known passage of Ephesians 2:14ff., where the corporate unity of Jews and gentiles is explained thus: "He [Christ] . . . has made both one⁵⁴ . . . by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments . . . that he might create the two in himself into one new man⁵⁵ . . . and might reconcile both to God in [or into?] one body. . . "⁵⁶ All these indications of unity elucidate the thought of the one body in Christ. The two parties have become a unity in Christ — when in his flesh, his human mode of existence, he suffered and died for both on the cross. He created them both in himself into one new man (cf. Gal. 3:28), a description equivalent to "one body in him." And this creation is not only intended of the spiritual communion between Jews and gentiles founded in Christ's death, but he already united both in himself on the cross, as the one new man(kind) represented by him. It is uncertain how one is to take the last expression, which speaks of the reconciling of both in one body. Is the one body understood here of Christ in the sense of "in his flesh" (v. 15), and is the reconciliation of both groups founded therefore in the fact that they have been reconciled to God in one body on the cross? Or by the one body is the church to be understood here, in the sense of the one new man who in this unity has by Christ been reconciled to God? It is difficult to decide between these two conceptions.⁵⁷ But this passage clearly shows wherein the unity of the church is founded and why it can be called his body or one body in him: because already in his suffering and death he represented it in all its parts and united it in himself into a new unity.⁵⁸

The relationship of the body and the Spirit, too, is the same as that which is presupposed in 1 Corinthians 12:13.⁵⁹ This is clearly evident, for example, from the paraenetic pronouncements in Ephesians 4:3ff., and in Colossians 3:15. Both passages are concerned with keeping the peace in the church, in Ephesians 4:3 further defined as "the unity of the Spirit." In order to lend greater force to this admonition the apostle reminds believers of the fact that they are after all one body: ". . . one body and one Spirit, even as you were also called in one hope," etc. (Eph. 4:4). And in Colossians 3:15 the same thing is expressed in this way: ". . . to which peace you were also called in one body." Keeping the unity of the Spirit is therefore motivated by the unity of the body. One body and one Spirit. The sequence is not accidental. Because the body is one, there can only be talk of one Spirit, and the church is called to keep the unity of the Spirit. In principle the Spirit presupposes the body, and not the reverse. For it is Christ who intends now to fill those who are one body in him with the gifts of his one Spirit.

This spiritual aspect of the body of Christ emerges very clearly in Ephesians and Colossians — along with the redemptive-historical aspect. One can observe that thereby Christ's position of authority as the exalted Lord receives particular emphasis. In this context Christ again and again is termed the Head. As the one who has been invested by God with all power and who is the Head of all things, he has been given to the church as his body (Eph. 1:20-23). As such he also has all spiritual gifts at his disposal (Eph. 4:8ff). The church as his body may have fellowship with him as the Head of all things, but especially as its Head (Col. 1:18; Eph. 4:15ff.; Col. 2:10, 19). And in that spiritual communion, from this being filled out of Christ as the Head (Eph. 1:23; Col. 2:9, 10), the church is to realize itself as the body of Christ, be built up as his body and build itself up (Eph. 4:12, 16). This spiritual upbuilding must bring it to adulthood ("unto a full-grown man," mature manhood), "to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (v. 13). Here again, as in Ephesians 2:15 and Galatians 3:28, the church is identified with a person, a new man, a (mature) man. But whereas in Galatians 3:28 and Ephesians 2:15 it is a matter of the givenness of the one person and the one body in Christ, here the spiritual and historical development, the maturation of the one man or the one body, receives all the emphasis. What the church is in Christ, it is more and more to become. This is then elucidated with all kinds of figures borrowed from the organic composition of the human body: the body, which is a closely fitting whole and held together by the service of all its joints, derives its growth from Christ in order to build itself up in love (Eph. 4:16); or, as it is said in similar words in Colossians 2:19: the body, supported and knit together by joints and ligaments, draws its divine growth from Christ, the Head.

We have to do here in a certain sense with the same ideas as in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12: as the body of Christ the church is to reveal itself as a genuine body in unity and diversity. But here, more markedly than in Romans and 1 Corinthians, the spiritual connection emerges between the church and the glorified Christ, who is time and again called the Head not only of all things, but also of the church that is his body.

This same idea is developed in a somewhat different manner in the well-known pericope of Ephesians 5:22-33, in which the head-body relationship is spoken of as an analogy of the marriage relationship. We have already met with this analogy in 1 Corinthians 6:15ff., in the warning against fornication. However, whereas in 1 Corinthians 6 only the category of the "body" plays a part, in Ephesians 5 the relationship of husband and wife, Christ and the church, is described as that of head and body. Here, too, at least so far as Christ and the church are concerned, the origin of this relationship is sought in what Christ once did for the church: He is the Head of the church, being the Savior (Soter) of the body (v. 23). To that is then joined, in continuous analogy with what the husband and wife owe each other in marriage, the spiritual character of this head-body relationship. For as the husband, if he loves his wife, loves his own body, himself, his own flesh, so also Christ nourishes and cherishes the church; for we are members of his body (vv. 28-30). In so doing Paul cites— just as in 1 Corinthians 6:16, but here much more fully —the words of Genesis 2:24. He applies the "great mystery" expressed there, that the two are one flesh, to the relationship of Christ and the church,⁶⁰ in order to demonstrate how deeply this unity is anchored and in what a close, spiritual communion it is realized.

All this naturally places us before the question as to how one is to conceive of this relationship of head and body, whereby the question we have already discussed recurs, as to how Paul came to make use of specifically this mode of expression for this relationship.

So far, first of all, as the head-body relationship is concerned, one can easily arrive at the idea that the naming of Christ as the "Head" of the church must be understood within the framework of the "body" terminology already familiar to us from Romans and 1 Corinthians. A certain augmentation or complication of the figure would then take place,⁶¹ in the sense that Christ functions as the Head of the church represented as the body, that is, as the most prominent part of the body. And one can all the more easily come to this idea because in particular two passages of Ephesians and Colossians seem to advance it; Ephesians 4:15ff. for one, where it is said that we (the church) in every way grow up into him who is the Head, Christ, from whom the whole body receives its growth. Here, at least at first glance, the Head appears to be thought of as a specific organ of the body, and the whole imagery seems to be borrowed from this organic functioning of the human body. One finds the same idea, then, in the pronouncement of Colossians 2:19, where there is also mention of "the Head, from whom the whole body⁶² equipped and knit together by means of sinews and connecting organs receives its divine growth." This "organic" conception of the relationship of Christ as the Head and the church as the body has accordingly been long and frequently advocated.⁶³

Closer examination, however, enables one to realize quickly the untenable nature of this explanation. First of all, the representation of a body nourished from the head and growing up toward the head, as one would then have to take Ephesians 4:15, 16 and Colossians 2:19, is physiologically difficult to imagine, and was certainly not current in antiquity.⁶⁴ For that matter Paul does not formulate: "the Head, from which," but "the Head, from whom," that is, from Christ (Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:15). More importantly, however, from Paul's own terminology clearly another idea emerges than that of such a composite metaphor. For the church is continually represented as the whole body (in Eph. 4:16 as well), and not merely as the remaining parts of the body belonging to the head, which the idea of a trunk would then imply. In 1 Corinthians 12:16 the functions of the head are likewise compared with those of the church (and not with those of Christ). And what entirely settles the matter is this: Christ cannot be thought of as a (subordinate) part of his own body, which is involved in the process of growth toward adulthood and which as part of the body must itself consequently be "in Christ." Even from these "organic" texts themselves it is evident that one arrives at all kinds of absurdities when one chooses to take "body" and "head" as one, composite metaphor. This is still more clearly the case when one takes into consideration the application of the head-body relationship to the marriage relationship, as this occurs in Ephesians 5:23ff. There the husband is called the head (of the wife) and the wife the body (of the husband) (cf. vv. 23, 28). But it is unwarranted and absurd so to conceive of this as though the wife constituted the trunk of this unity of the two and the husband the head. The intention is obviously a different one. This is in consequence no less the case with the relationship of Christ as the Head of the church and of the church as his body. We have to do here not with one and the same metaphor but with two, each of which, although they are (can be) closely connected with each other, yet has an independent significance and an independent existence.⁶⁵

That we are not mistaken in this conclusion is not only apparent from the fact that in Romans and 1 Corinthians only the church is spoken of as the body and not Christ as the Head, but, especially with respect to the concept "head," can easily be demonstrated from the Pauline texts available to us. Paul repeatedly speaks of the head in a metaphorical sense, without the thought being implied of a body belonging to it. God is the Head of Christ, Christ is the Head of every man, the husband is the head of the wife (1 Cor. 11:3). This is not to say that Christ therefore is the body of God, or every man the body of Christ. Husbands indeed are to love their wives, "as their own bodies" (Eph. 5:28), but, as has been said, it is just here that the combination of both ideas into one becomes impossible. Similarly, when in Ephesians 1:22 Christ is termed the Head over all things and in Colossians 2:10 the Head over all principalities and powers, this does not mean that "all things," all rule and power, are also his body or belong to his body. The qualification "head" has its own independent significance, regardless of whether the metaphorical mention of a "body" is joined with it.

The question as to what is meant by "head" in these contexts admits of being answered in particular from the pericope of Ephesians 5:22ff. already discussed. From the headship of the husband over the wife and of Christ over the church here first of all the subjection of the wife to the husband is inferred, just as the church is subject to Christ. Headship points therefore to a position of rulership and authority.⁶⁶ But this position of superiority and rulership of the head both for Christ and for the husband is not something that stands by itself, but arises from the very specific, unique character of this headship. As we have already seen, for Christ it is founded in the fact that he is also the Preserver or Savior of the body. It says with respect to the relationship between Christ and the church that the church has its origin in him and that it therefore is dependent on him as the one who has prepared the way for it and to whom it owes its existence. The headship of the husband will also have to be understood in this sense. In 1 Corinthians 11:3, 8, 12, it is related to the history of the origin of mankind, namely, that the woman is from the man, has her existence from him, and is therefore the "glory" of the man, just as the church is the "glory" of Christ (cf. Eph. 5:27). Head thus points not merely to superiority, control, rule, but first of all to a relationship of beginning, which is determinative for the whole of continuing existence. This same relationship exists between Christ and "all things," powers, principalities, etc. He is of them and in them "the First," because all things from the beginning have been comprehended and have their subsistence in him as the Firstborn of every creature.⁶⁷ "Head," "Pre-eminent"-ness, is therefore also in the closest connection with origin: it implies that Christ is the Beginning and the Firstborn, of all things in general as well as of the church in particular (cf. Col. 1:15- 18).

All this may serve as evidence that with "head" we must not form physiological conceptions derived from the relationships within the human body, but that the concept rather must be understood from the structures and connections of the human community. We come into contact here again with the thought of the containment and representation of the one in and through the other, who by his position as first or by his unique and decisive action with regard to the other or the others occupies a determinative and dominant place. In this inclusive and representative sense Christ is the Head of the church, just as he is Head of all things, and he has thus obtained abiding control over the church and over all things.

In his relationship to the church, however, continuing communion in the pneumatic sense of the word is also joined with this headship. He who as the Head is the Savior of the body is also the one who cleanses the church by baptism in order to present it glorious to himself. And just as the husband as the head of the wife loves her, nourishes and cherishes her, so Christ as well (Eph. 5:25ff.). Here Paul can even refer to the mystery of the two being one flesh. As the Head Christ so much desires to unite himself by his Spirit with the church and to dwell in it, because it is from him and is one in him and with him.

If one may assume with certainty, therefore, that the concepts "head" and "body" each have their own independence and are not to be viewed as representations mutually dependent on each other, on the other hand it can also be seen from the above how these two qualifications can be so closely related to each other. The ground for this conjunction does not lie in that "head" and "body" in Paul's thought may be said gradually to have merged into one composite metaphor, but that both concepts, each in its own way and each from "its own side," materially give expression to the same idea, namely, that of the church's belonging to Christ, both in the redemptive-historical and corporate as well as in the pneumatic sense of the word. Thereby "head" in that relationship places all the emphasis on the initial position and the resultant redemptive significance of Christ with respect to the church; while "body" on the other hand regards the same relationship from the side of the church. It expresses the entirely unique character of the church's belonging to Christ, just as the wife belongs to the husband as "his own" body (Eph.5:28), and in distinction from "all things," of which Christ indeed is the Head, but which nevertheless do not together constitute his body. At the same time "body" serves to throw light on the mutual relationships within the church itself in its dependence on and in its pneumatic communion with Christ (Rom. 12; 1 Cor. 12; Eph. 4:16ff.; Col. 2:19).

The conjunction of both points of view, as we have already seen, is sometimes so close as to give the impression that both representations run over into each other, as in Ephesians 4:15ff. and Colossians 2:19. This is no more than appearance, however. A fading of the boundaries does not take place here, either in the representation or in the thing itself. "Head" and "body" form two separate figurative categories and retain this independence even when they are linked together. "Head" and "body" constitute — so we may conclude — each for itself, but especially in their connection with each other, the shaded expression of what, in accordance with the everywhere visible fundamental structures of his preaching, the Apostle Paul understands by the unity of Christ and the church. They are not its only expression and therefore do not occupy a monopolistic position in Paul's ecclesiology. But we may surely be permitted to say that they give expression to that unity in a fashion that in the richness of its possibilities for application is nowhere surpassed or even has its equal in all of Paul's preaching and in the whole of the New Testament.

The question remains as to whether something can be said still further by way of explanation on the origin and background of this remarkable dual terminology.

In more recent exegesis the attempt has been made particularly in two different ways to explain the Pauline head-body terminology in Colossians and Ephesians against a broader background. The first is the so-called gnostic interpretation, as that has been introduced notably by Schlier⁶⁸ and Käsemann⁶⁹ and has been favorably judged, for example, by the Roman Catholic exegete Wikenhauser.⁷⁰ The gist of this interpretation is that the influence of the gnostic myth of the Primal-Man Redeemer is to be perceived in Paul, according to which the souls of all men belong to one cosmic pneumatic body, which as Primal-Man is said to have ended up in matter; while the members of this body are said then to be gathered again into one body by the Redeemer and brought back to heaven. Moreover, in some of the gnostic texts the Redeemer makes his appearance as the cosmic pneumatic Head⁷¹ and the redeemed as his body; in others there is mention only of the body and of the members of the Primal-Man Redeemer. These gnostic notions need not have been the immediate literary source for Paul, but would form the conceptual materials of which he (or whoever else then the author of Colossians and Ephesians may have been) availed himself for his purpose.

This interpretation, which impressed many in the 1930s, has lost its attraction for most interpreters. Further investigation of the gnostic sources especially has⁷² led to a much more sober judgment. Insofar as these sources exhibit a certain agreement with the idea of the body of Christ, as in the Manichaean writings, they are so late that they are not to be considered as a source for Paul. And as far as one is now able to form any conception of Gnosticism in its old form, also on the basis of newly made discoveries, every trace of the idea of the church as body of Christ is lacking in it.⁷³

In addition, if one were to have to conceive of the Head-body relationship according to this late gnostic pattern, then the objection pointed out above against the "organic" view, which thinks of head and body as one whole and on this account does not admit of being connected with the Pauline idea, basically recurs with unabated force.⁷⁴ Everything points to the fact, therefore, that if there can be talk here of a mutual interdependence, it is rather to be sought in syncretistic post-Christian Gnosticism than in Paul. On these grounds accordingly this gnostic interpretation is finding fewer and fewer adherents in the more recent literature.⁷⁵

Another interpretation has taken its place with increasing force. This attempts to explain the head-body terminology and the complex of ideas expressed by it from Paul's Jewish background. In so doing interpreters start from the concept of Christ as the second Adam and from the idea of representation given with it. Paul is said therewith to have elaborated and applied to Christ a motif well-known in Jewish theology. Continuing to build on this, they have then attempted to bring the terminological question both of (the church as) the body and of (Christ as) the Head of the church to a solution in the light of the Jewish usage. The matter has been approached from more than one side.

On the one hand, W. D. Davies⁷⁶ has related the qualification of the church as the body of Christ to certain rabbinic speculations on the body of Adam, on the ground of which the rabbis endeavored to vindicate the unity of the human race. This one body of Adam was said to have been composed of the dust of the whole earth, so that east and west, north and south were brought together in it; it was also said to be "bisexual" so that in him both male and female were present. The body of Adam therefore embraced the whole of humanity. "Was it not natural, then [thus Davies], that Paul when he thought of the new humanity being incorporated 'in Christ' should have conceived of it as the 'body of the second Adam, where there was neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, bond nor free.. . . The purpose of God in Christ is . . . the reconstitution of the essential oneness of mankind in Christ as a spiritual community, as it was one in Adam in a physical sense."⁷⁷

Others have sought the terminological background especially in the Jewish use of the qualification "head." Whereas in the Greek parallels that have been instanced "head" is always understood as a physical organ of the body, in the Jewish world of thought head signifies the progenitor or the leader.⁷⁸ It would as such, just as in Colossians 1:15-18, exhibit close affinity with such concepts as "beginning" (archē), "firstborn" (prōtotokos), in which the first not only in temporal order but also in order of rank is denoted. In this way the concept "head" terminologically would express the idea of the personification and representation of the many-in-one.⁷⁹

Now, in evaluating all this one will always need to distinguish carefully between the material and the terminological question. It is incontestable, in our opinion, that the idea of the all-in-one underlies Paul's speaking of the church as the body of Christ; likewise that the parallel with the first Adam plays a much more important part in Paul's ecclesiology than has frequently been supposed. It is another question whether the matter has hereby been made transparent terminologically.

One can hardly contend that this is so with regard to the explanation proposed by Davies. For not only is there in Paul's epistles no trace whatever that for the universal character of the church (in which "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female," etc.)in one way or another he fastened onto the fantastic speculations of some rabbis concerning the composition of the body of Adam; but the whole suggestion that the "body" of Christ would answer to this body of Adam created from the dust of the earth also has no basis in all that Paul writes elsewhere on the first Adam (cf. 1 Cor. 15:45ff.; Eph. 5:31). T o be sure, there are possibilities for explanation here. Paul says of the husband, too, that he is the head of the wife (because the woman is from the man) and that on that account he is to love her "as his own body"; and by analogy Adam could be called the head of all who are from him, and these many could also be called his body⁸⁰ as having sprung from him and as the unity of the many belonging to him. Ephesians 5:23-33 proves that such a conception is not far removed from Paul,⁸¹ and it corresponds with what is in our view the basic idea both of sōma and of kephalē. But even though this collective and corporate way of thinking should find support in the notions to which Davies calls attention, yet terminologically this considerable difference remains, that sōma in Paul denotes "the many," whereas in the materials adduced by Davies it signifies Adam's own physical body. Furthermore, there is no question in them of Adam as head

The greatest value ought, in our opinion, to be attached to the explanation which with an appeal to the Jewish world of thought chooses to see in the concept "head" an indication of the idea of representation. Here also the evidence is not overwhelming. Clear indications are lacking, for example, that Adam is termed the head of mankind in this representative sense.⁸² Likewise the materials that have so far been introduced contain no convincing connection between the head thus conceived and a "body" answering to it, as in Paul. Some advocates of this interpretation of "head" are even of the opinion that the origin of the concept "body" must be entirely dissociated from it and sought somewhere else.⁸³ All this shows clearly that there can be no question of a somewhat current and generally equivalent usage in the Jewish sources, so far as our acquaintance with them presently extends. It can, however, be put to the credit of this new examination of the concept "head" that for the use, so characteristic of Paul, of this qualification it seeks a much more appropriate background than is the case when one attempts to trace this in the physiological relationship of head and body conceived in the manner of the Greeks.

We are able to determine in conclusion, therefore, that however much — particularly so far as the idea of "body" is concerned — the terminological question has not yet been completely resolved, there need be no doubt as to the essential meaning of the apostle with this double qualification. The basic idea of both lies in the conception, so typical for Paul's doctrine of salvation, of "the many in the One." While in Romans and in 1 Corinthians all attention is concentrated on the revelation of the church as one body, in Colossians and Ephesians the bond between Christ and his own itself comes into view, especially in its continuing pneumatic and all-embracing significance. Everything is here focused on making the privilege implied in this relationship for the church to be understood in all its fullness, specifically in view of Christ's position as the Head of all things. This last point still requires a separate discussion.

SECTION 62. CHRIST THE HEAD OF ALL THINGS. THE CHURCH AS PLEROMA

Already in examining the fundamental structures of Paul's preaching we were made aware⁸⁴ of the central significance Christ has not only with respect to the church, but also to all things. Both in virtue of creation and in virtue of the restoration of the lost coherence of all things in him he forms the great point of integration for all that is in heaven and on earth. It is especially in the epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians that these profound ideas are given expression (cf. Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:16, 17); in the Epistle to the Colossians, which is perhaps first in terms of chronological order, in unremitting opposition to a heresy that apparently caused the church to live in slavish fear over against the spiritual powers surrounding it (cf. Col. 2:18ff.).⁸⁵

What still requires our separate attention in this chapter is the connection Paul makes, precisely in these two epistles, between Christ's all-embracing significance as the Head of "all things" and his position as the Head of the church.⁸⁶

Even a superficial inspection of the relevant statements teaches us that in the description of Christ's "cosmic"⁸⁷ significance Paul's repeated concern is just that relationship with the church. This is very clearly the case, for example, in Colossians 1:18, where after the extensive pronouncements on Christ's all-embracing significance it follows: and this (thus delineated Christ) is the Head of the body, that is, of the church. The intention of the argument is therefore not to broach this all-encompassing significance of Christ as a "separate subject," but, as is evident from the whole occasion for this Epistle to the Colossians, to bring home to the church its consequences for its own life.

If we now consider in what respect the church shares in the glory of Christ its Head, we ought to catch a still closer view of this glory itself. First of all, his superiority above all rule, authority, power, and dominion (Eph. 1:21; cf. Col. 1:16; 2:10), by which angelic powers are intended,⁸⁸ both in their subjection to and in their rebelliousness against God. This superiority, which has been conferred on Christ by God in his exaltation (Eph. 1:20), is closely bound up with the significance with respect to "all things" that he had already at the creation of the world (Col. 1:15ff.), and which, in accordance with the divine good pleasure regarding the fullness of the times, has taken effect anew (Eph. 1:9, 10). All this has its deepest ground in the fact that "the whole fulness was pleased to dwell in him" (Col. 1:19), or as it is said in Colossians 2:9: "in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." In consequence Christ is the Head of all things (Eph. 1:22), or of all principalities and powers (Col. 2:10), and in virtue of this glory conferred on him he "fills all things" (Eph. 4:10; 1:23).

We are confronted here with a very extensive complex of expressions and ideas the interpretation of which presents us with great problems. In addition to the fact that Christ is here again called the Head and is represented as the one in whom, as the Image of God and the Firstborn of every creature, all things in heaven and on earth are summed up and have their integration point — expressions which, as we have seen,⁸⁹ seem to have been derived from the Adam theology — the words "fulness" (plērōma) and "fill" repeatedly come to the fore here, as a denotation of God himself and of Christ's all-embracing significance, words that are furthermore employed of the church in its relation to Christ. The frequent use of these words in Colossians and Ephesians is very striking, and it is difficult to give an explanation of them. It is clear indeed that with this "conception of fullness" Paul is pitting himself, at least in Colossians, against a religiosity⁹⁰ that was highly conditioned by belief in cosmic powers over against which man finds himself in a slavish position of subjection. Paul on the other hand speaks of God as "the whole fulness"⁹¹ (Col. 1:19). Although this expression is very unusual — that God actively fills all things is, even in biblical usage, much less unusual (cf., for example, Jer. 23:24) than that he himself should be the Fullness or the Filled One⁹² — the thought is apparently this, that outside or above God nothing or no one has existence or power. In this expression therefore one will have to look not so much for a description of what God is "in himself," but of his relationship to the whole of creation:⁹³ he embraces all things and the existence of all rests in him. He is "all and in all" (1 Cor. 15:28). Accordingly when it is said that it pleased the whole fullness⁹⁴ to dwell in Christ, this is, as appears from the context of the sentence, in explanation of the preceding qualifications of Christ as Beginning, Firstborn, the First in all things (Col. 1:18). As little therefore as there is anything in heaven or on earth outside God and his reach, so little is there anything outside Christ. The whole fullness of the deity dwells in him bodily (Col. 2:9), that is, the whole might and glory of God with respect to all things becomes manifest in him, makes its appearance in him, and asserts itself in him.⁹⁵ For this reason the church is to hold to him and not to the wisdom of the world (Col. 2:8ff.).

We shall have to understand the statements relating to this matter in Ephesians to the same effect. In 4:10 it is said that Christ has ascended above all the heavens, "that he might fill all things." As it is said of God in the Old Testament that he fills heaven and earth (Jer. 23:24),⁹⁶ so this pronouncement of omnipotence can be transferred to Christ: the whole universe falls within the reach of his mighty presence. He is the one (Eph. 1:23) who in every respect fills the universe.⁹⁷ And to this effect one will have to understand the expression of 3:18ff., that the church will be in a position to understand "what is the breadth and length and height and depth." These absolutely employed dimensions are again a denotation of the all-embracing character of the "fulness of God" represented by Christ, controlled by him, and standing at his disposal⁹⁸ (3:19; cf. v. 15).

Now it is this glory of Christ as the Head of all things which determines his position as the Head of the church; the "fulness" terminology returns here.⁹⁹ The church is "his pleroma" (Eph. 1:23), that is to say, the (area or dominion) filled by him.¹⁰⁰ We meet with precisely the same thought in Colossians 2:10 where, after the words "in him the whole fulness of the deity dwells bodily," it is said of the church: "and you are filled in him who is the Head of all power," etc.; similarly in Ephesians 3:19 the object of the indwelling of Christ in the church is said to be: "that you may be filled unto all the fulness of God." Finally, Ephesians 4:7ff. is also to be mentioned in this connection, where it follows on the declaration of the fullness of the power of Christ that he has furnished his church with all manner of gifts (apostles, prophets, etc.), so that it will attain to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

While it is said of Christ on the one hand, therefore, that he fills all things (with his mighty presence) (Eph, 1:23; 4:10), yet the church can be called his pleroma in a special sense, the domain filled and ever increasingly to be filled by him (Eph. 1:23; 3:19; 4:13; Col. 2:10). There is apparently a distinction here, therefore, between filling and filling that coincides with the difference between Christ's Headship over "all things" on the one hand and of the church on the other. If the first speaks especially of his power and of the containedness of all things in him, the second has reference primarily to the appropriation of the resultant benefits and gifts of Christ to and by the church. This is seen most clearly in Ephesians 4:7-16, where Christ's position of authority over all things is immediately joined with what Christ wishes to give the church for its spiritual growth and maturity. Accordingly Ephesians 5:18 mentions being filled with the Holy Spirit (cf. Eph. 3:16-19; Col. 1:19). It is without doubt a question therefore of a pneumatic reality, which must be understood, however, against the background and in the light of Christ's all-embracing power. The view of that power — and this is the effect of this continuous linking of the twofold Headship of Christ — is on the one hand to keep the church from being overawed by any other power, as though it did not possess in Christ everything necessary for its perfecting, and on the other hand to urge it on to seek its fullness in the fullness of its Head. This fullness and all-sufficiency of Christ are to bring it to adulthood, make it draw from him all that is necessary for its growth, so that in its faith and knowledge of Christ it will not bog down along the way, will not be moved and tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine and by the craftiness of human error (Eph. 4:14; cf. Col. 2:18, 19), but will be firmly rooted and grounded (Eph. 3:17; Col. 2:7ff.).

Although this combination of the pleroma of the church (as gift as well as mandate and goal) with the pleroma possessed by Christ particularly in Colossians must be seen against the background of the heresy that hampered the church in its stability and growth, it is clear that broad perspectives for the life of the church in general are opened in it.¹⁰¹ On the one hand, in this growing fullness of the church which is derived from Christ, the all-embracing and all-transcending power and grace of Christ reveal themselves (Eph. 2:7), an announcement (and challenge!) particularly to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph. 3:10). In that sense this fullness of the church is a prophecy and a representation of the redemptive work of Christ embracing heaven and earth. On the other hand, there is in this fullness of Christ in which the church is permitted to share an indication as to its own place and development in the world. In its own existence and in its relationship to the world it has to show itself as the church of him who is the Head over all things. It has, therefore, also so far as its own existence and conduct are concerned, to see all that is in heaven and on earth from the vantage point of the all-embracing sovereignty of its Head. It has to rid itself of the "elementary principles of the world" (Col. 2:8, 20), that is to say, the world view and the pattern of conduct that belong to the unredeemed world¹⁰² and not to Christ and which bring those who live by them into a slavish position of subjection. In distinguishing and rejecting them lies the adulthood of the church, and in proportion as it lives more out of the fullness of Christ instead of according to these worldly principles will it increase in spiritual growth and fullness (Col. 2:7, 8, 20ff.; 3:1ff.; Eph. 4:13, 14).

When Paul views the existence of the church in the world surrounding it from the viewpoint of Christ's original position, confirmed in his death and resurrection, as the First in the universe, here again the principal motif of his whole doctrine of salvation remains in force, which can be expressed in the contrast of "already" and "not yet." That is also clear in Ephesians and Colossians.¹⁰³ On the one hand the victory of Christ over the powers is nowhere proclaimed more plainly and more triumphantly than here. God has disarmed them in Christ, made a public example of them, and harnessed them to his triumphal chariot (Col. 2:15; cf. Eph. 1:20ff.; 4:8ff.). Through him God has reconciled, pacified, subjected all things to himself¹⁰⁴ (Col. 1:20). On the other hand it continues to hold for the church as well that it has to wage war not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, the powers, the world rulers of this darkness, the evil spirits in the heavenly places¹⁰⁵ (Eph. 6:12). The powers, however much already vanquished in Christ, have not yet become harmless. But in order to be able to contend against them suitably, the church has received an armor from God, so richly furnished that it is able to continue to stand (Eph. 6:13ff.). It is in that sense that the church even now may represent and exhibit the fullness of Christ; that both in its gift and in its mandate it shares as his body in the place and power of Christ its Head who fills all in every way (Eph. 1:23); and that in the believing exercise of this share it attains to its spiritual growth and upbuilding. The various facets of this upbuilding will have to be dealt with further in a separate chapter.

SECTION 63. THE CHURCH AS THE PEOPLE OF GOD AND AS THE BODY OF CHRIST

If we ask ourselves, finally, what the relationship is between the two great conceptions of the church that we find in Paul, namely, that of the people of God and that of the body of Christ, it can be said in general that the conception of the church as the body of Christ gives expression in a pregnant and special manner to the peculiar character and newness of the eschatological people of God revealing itself in the church.¹⁰⁶ In so doing the following points are to be distinguished.

(1) The essential idea of the qualification of the church as the body of Christ lies in that the people of God has its unity and common existence in Christ. This unity rests on the redemptive-historical conception of "the many" (or "all") as belonging to and being represented by or in the one. There is a close connection here between people of God and body of Christ, inasmuch as the people of God is included and represented in such fountainhead figures as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as in the mediatorial figure¹⁰⁷ of Moses (cf. Rom. 4:1; 9:7ff.; 1 Cor. 10:2 ["all into Moses"] ) and thus exhibits a clear prefiguration of the corporate unity of the church in Christ. Both conceptions approach each other most closely in Galatians 3:16, 27-29, where there is mention first of Christ as the seed of Abraham, and then it is said of all who are of Christ that they together form one (person, body). Although the idea of body is not mentioned here, it is certainly present materially.¹⁰⁸ Therefore, "body of Christ" gives expression to the unity of all who in Christ are the people of God and the true seed of Abraham. Paul gives a universal scope to this corporate unity of the people of God, not only by reckoning the believing gentiles, too, as of the seed of Abraham, but also by going back beyond Abraham to Adam, to qualify Christ as the second Adam and the church as the "new man" (humanity), "new creation" (Gal. 6:15; Eph. 2:15; 4:13). The corporate idea of the all-inone is thereby the same, however. And it is in this train of thought that Christ as the Beginning, Firstborn, second Adam, Sōtēr, etc., can be called the Head of the church and thus the Head of the body.

(2) The common existence of believers in Christ as his body thus understood gives a sharper and richer picture of the church than can be drawn even on the ground of its significance as the eschatological people of God. If the latter speaks especially of the origin of the church, its election by God, its course through history, it is its mode of existence that is denoted as the body of Christ, its concrete being, its inner substance, both as concerns internal relationships and its relationship to Christ.

With respect to relationships within, the church can and must learn to understand its unity and diversity, its limits and its universality from the fact that it is the body of Christ. It is in that sense accordingly that the concept body of Christ functions especially in the Pauline paraenesis. Because all believers together are one body in Christ, the dividedness of Christ is in conflict with its being, for Christ is not divided (1 Cor. 1:13).

Nor can one restrict this unity to the sphere of what is invisible and hidden. Not only does the word "body" not denote an invisible but a visible mode of existence, but on the ground of being together in Christ Paul concludes the necessity of a visible, outward manifestation of unity as the body (cf. 1 Cor. 1:13; 12:12ff; Rom. 12:4, 5; Eph. 4:15, 16, 25; Col. 3:14, 15). Diversity, breadth, difference in gifts, ability, and mandate have been given along with the existence as body. And Paul places no less emphasis on this diversity within and in virtue of the existence of the church as body over against all self-direction, sectarianism, and spiritual intolerance than he does on the unity. At the same time the universality and catholicity of the church are implied in its unity anchored in Christ; for in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free. For this reason they all together form one body, and within the body of Christ all discrimination is excluded; as on the other hand the boundary of the body of the church is situated in this unity in Christ. One cannot make the members of Christ the members of a prostitute (1 Cor. 6:16), one cannot at the same time participate in the body and blood of Christ and in that which is sacrificed to idols, for the one bread constitutes one body, inclusively and exclusively (1 Cor. 10:16-22), and there is no communion of light with darkness (2 Cor. 6:14ff). In all sorts of ways and with a wealth of figures and turns of phrase Paul instructs the church with a view to internal relationships and its manifestation in the world to understand itself as the body of Christ, and every believer as a member of this body.

(3) The real and supporting ground of the whole conception of the people of God as the body of Christ, however, lies in the unity of the church with Christ himself. This unity is, as has been sufficiently expounded, not merely or in the first place of a spiritual kind, but goes back beyond that. Nor can one say that the qualification body of Christ exclusively or especially expresses the pneumatic aspect of this unity. The church is the body of Christ not only in virtue of his spiritual indwelling, but already because Christ is the Sōtēr of the body, has purchased his church for himself, and it had always been included in him. One cannot rightly represent the matter in such a way, therefore, as though at bottom a certain spiritualism were attached to the corpus Christi idea and that the counterpoise for that were in the connection with the concrete historical conception of the people of God.¹⁰⁹ It is again evident indirectly how important it is whether one chooses to seek the background of the "body" (of Christ) in the Jewish or in the Hellenistic world.¹¹⁰

All this does not alter the fact that the qualification body of Christ (in the nature of the case) also has a pneumatic significance, insofar as it refers to the communion between the church and the exalted Christ. That communion is in question especially in the "body" pronouncements in Ephesians and Colossians, although there, too, the logical priority of "body" is apparent with respect to the Holy Spirit.¹¹¹ The same thing applies to the designation of Christ as the Head. At the same time —so we have seen — this Head-body conception makes the connection between the church and "all things," in that Christ as the Head of the church is also the Head of all things, and the church thus is the pleroma, the area of the power of him who fills and governs all things in all respects.¹¹²

Undoubtedly, therefore, the designation "body of Christ," as a further christological definition of the people of God, contains a wealth of new viewpoints and possibilities of expression for elucidating fully the place and significance of the church as the New Testament people of God. Yet one must be on his guard against incorrect distinctions or contrasts, for example, as though a certain transition were to take place here from redemptive-historical to pneumatic thinking, or something of that sort. The basic idea of the body of Christ is that all that the church is as the New Testament people of God it is in Christ, and that its historical mode of existence and manifestation in the world, too, must answer to that. "Body of Christ" is the christological concentration of "people of God," just as it is implied in the Headship of Christ that the redemptive-historical and pneumatic unity of the people of God is grounded in Christ and is effectuated in communion with him.

1. Cf., e.g., E. Schweizer, "Die Kirche als Leib Christi in den paulinischen Homologoumena," TLZ, Vol. 86, 1961, cols. 168ff,

2. On this see, among others, J. J. Meuzelaar, Der Leib des Messias, 1961, pp. 1-19; J. Havet, "La doctrine Paulinienne du 'Corps du Christ,'" in Littérature et Théologie Paulinienne ( Recherches Bibliques, V), 1960, pp. 185ff. For the developments in Roman Catholic theology (and exegesis) see the accurate and valuable surveys in W. D. Jonker, Mistieke Liggaam en Kerk in die Nuwe Rooms-Katolieke Teologie, 1955.

3. For this "practical meaning of the Pauline concept," see Meuzelaar, ibid., p. 16, who also holds this view (cf. pp. 168ff.). Among the Roman Catholic exegetes this conception has been defended by L. Deimel, Leib Christi, pp. 22, 42, et al. H. Schlier, Christus und die Kirche im Epheserbrief, 1930, defends it with regard to the statements in Romans and 1 Corinthians, as contrasted with those in Ephesians and Colossians; see further below in the text.

4. For this conception in the exegetical literature see the work of Traugott Schmidt, which appeared already in 1919 but continues to be influential, Der Leib Christi — in this connection, e.g., pp. 142ff.

5. For this conception in the classical (Augustine, Calvin) and in the present-day ("ecumenical") theology, see H. M. Matter, De Kerk als Lichaam van Christus ( Rome, Reformatie, Oecumene), 1962, pp. 7ff.

6. So far as the exegetical literature is concerned, the clear expositions of A. Wikenhauser, Die Kirche als der Mystische Leib Christi nach dem Apostel Paulus, 2nd ed., 1940, are representative for this traditional conception set forth in all manner of variations; see also E. Mersch, The Whole Christ, ET 1938.

7. Der Leib Christi [Soma Christou] in den paulinischen Homologoumena und Antilegomena, 1942.

8. For this interpretation of "body of Christ" as the whole of those who have been included in Christ see also, e.g., S. Hanson, The Unity of the Church in the New Testament, 1946; for the connection with the "Adam theology" in Judaism, Schweizer, "Die Kirche als Leib Christi," TLZ, 1961, cols. 163ff.

9. Der Leib Christi, p. 44.

10. See further below, pp. 373ff.

11. One can refer here already to the conception of Albert Schweitzer. According to his view, in Paul's thinking the church forms such a close unity with Christ that it even now shares in the resurrection-corporeality of Christ (cf. The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, pp. 101ff.). From this idea via a meaningful simplification that of the body of Christ purportedly came into being. "The participation of the elect with Christ in the same corporeity becomes a being part of the body of Christ" ( ibid., p. 117). This conception, which is characteristic of Schweitzer's book, has not found acceptance because of its extremely realistic anticipation of the participation of believers in the resurrection-corporeality of Christ. Even so Schweitzer with his eschatological view of the unity of Christ and his own has here also had great influence (over against the pneumatic-mystical view) (cf. Percy, Leib, p. 32, n. 69). He should therefore certainly be mentioned in the context of the authors listed above.

12. The Body, p. 57.

13. Ibid., p. 58.

14. Besides, one meets fairly frequently with the conception that the source of Paul's qualification of the church as the "body of Christ" is to be sought in this self-identification of Christ with his church. In addition to the literature mentioned in Meuzelaar, Der Leib des Messias, p. 13, see also L. Cerfaux, The Church in the Theology of St. Paul, p. 262, n. 1, according to which even Augustine held this view. Cerfaux himself rejects it.

15. See the previous note.

16. P. Benoit, "Corps, tête et plérôme dans les Épîtres de la captivité," Revue Biblique, 1956, pp. 5ff.; W. Goossens, l'Église Corps du Christ, 2nd ed., 1949; J. Havet, in the article cited above, in Littérature et Théologie Paulinienne, 1960; see furthermore the literature mentioned there on p. 187.

17. The Church in the Theology of St. Paul, p. 266.

18. Ibid., p. 278.

19. Ibid., p. 325.

20. Ibid., p. 330.

21. Ibid., p. 343.

22. To be sure Cerfaux writes: "the expression is always metaphorical," but he then defines this metaphorical quality thus: "The name of the mystically present cause (the risen body) is attributed to the effect (the Christians are the pleroma of Christ)" (p. 344). Apparently therefore no "ontic" identification takes place. The church-body of Christ can be regarded as "a reality distinct from the physical body" ( loc. cit.). But even so the word "body" refers in both cases to the personal (glorified) body of Christ. The word "metaphorical" does indeed restrict the identification of church and body of Christ, but not the literal, nonmetaphorical sense in which "body of Christ" is spoken of.

23. For this see, e.g., W. D. Jonker, Mistieke Liggaam, and J. Havet, in Littérature et Théologie Paulinienne, 1960.

24. Interesting and characteristic for the manner in which the attempt is made to combine more recent exegesis and older church doctrine is the effort J. Havet (ibid,, pp. 213ff.) makes to remain in harmony with the collective view of the corpus Christi in the encyclical mentioned above.

25. Cf. especially Meuzelaar, Der Leib des Messias, pp. 16ff,, 171ff,

26. See the detailed surveys, e.g., in Wikenhauser, Die Kirche, pp. 130-143; see also Meuzelaar, ibid., pp. 149ff. The most familiar in this respect is surely the fable, occurring in various forms, of Menenius Agrippa (on the function of the state as "stomach" with respect to the other "parts of the body" of society). A question that arises here is whether in this literature "body" already has the metaphorical significance of "organism," community, etc. According to some this is not to be shown of the Greek sōma (in contrast to the Latin corpus) (cf., e.g., Wikenhauser, p. 225). In particular a Greek inscription at Cyrene has come into discussion in this connection in which there is mention of sōma; see T. W. Manson, "A Parallel to a N.T. Use of [ sōma]," Journal of Theol. Studies, 1935, p. 385. Others, however, have strongly disputed that here or elsewhere sōma has the significance of "community"; cf., e.g., Cerfaux, The Church in St. Paul, pp. 272ff.

27.. As Schlier, e.g., supposed for Romans and 1 Corinthians, in contradistinction to the Prison Epistles, where an entirely different conception of the church as body purportedly emerges (Christus und die Kirche im Epheserbrief, 1930, pp. 39ff.). On the other hand, Meuzelaar, e.g., wishes to understand the entire Pauline usage (including Colossians and Ephesians) exclusively of these mutual relationships of believers (Der Leib des Messias, pp. 168ff.).

28.. Matter chooses to think of a genitive of origin or authorship (originis or auctoris): as God has composed the human body in a certain way, so the church is the creative work of Christ and thus his body (wrought by him). He also wishes to understand the abridged expression in 1 Corinthians 12:12-"so also Christ" — in that sense, as: "so Christ does it also" (De Kerk als Lichaam van Christus, pp. 19-22).

29.. As Cerfaux, e.g., also wishes (see above, p. 367).

30. To have clearly demonstrated this is the merit of the writing of Robinson, The Body, although there are objections to be urged against his exegesis.

31. The rendering hoi polloi stands over against to de kath' heis. The intention of hoi polloi is to give expression to the collective: all of us. It does not say, however, hoi pantes, which is indeed materially the same (cf. Gal. 3:28), but is circumscribed here with the characteristic expression hoi polloi. Further see the text.

32.. Cf. Section 10.

33. This is shown very clearly in the writing of Percy, Der Leib Christi.

34. For this older idea (as held by H. J. Holtzmann, T. Schmidt, A. Wikenhauser), see the detailed refutation by Percy, Der Leib Christi, pp. 10ff. (cf. also above, pp. 364ff.).

35. See above, Section 19.

36. Cf. above, Section 38.

37. So, e.g., Wikenhauser, Die Kirche, p. 102; also Lietzmann, Cor., p. 63 (see, on the other hand, the rectifying annotation of Kümmel on p. 187).

38. So Matter, De Kerk, p. 20.

39. So rightly Percy, Der Leib Christi, p. 16.

40. So, e.g., Wikenhauser, Die Kirche, pp. 101, 102, 116ff.; Grosheide, 1 Cor., p. 330; and (alas!) the translation of the Dutch Bible Society and the RSV.

41. Cf. above, Section 38.

42. So, e.g., Lietzmann-Kümmel, Grosheide ("not of baptism . . . , but of the receiving of the Spirit at baptism"), Percy, Wikenhauser.

43. See further below, p. 420.

44. So, e.g., Schlatter, Käsemann, Wendland, Goppelt (in TDNT, VI, p. 160; cf. p. 117, n. 17, 18).

45. Cf. the statement of Robinson quoted above. Percy's conclusion, too, is to this effect (Der Leib Christi, p. 44). And especially the Roman Catholic exegetes (cf. Cerfaux. The Church in St. Paul, pp. 276ff., and above all Benoit, in Revue Biblique, 1956, p. 14). Benoit writes on 1 Cor. 10:16f: "The word sōma can only have the same meaning in verses 16 and 17. Now the inference from the first verse to the second is remarkable: by receiving in their body, through the sacramental rite, the body of Christ, they 'are' all together a sole body, that is to say, this body...."

46. So, e.g., Wikenhauser, Die Kirche, p. 109: "Body and blood mean the glorified body and glorified blood of the exalted Lord; that means, however, the heavenly Christ himself..., the body of the historical Christ, which of course is no longer body of flesh (Col. 1:22) but body of glory (Phil. 3:21)." Bultmann, too, writes (Theology, I, p. 147) that it would be wrong to inquire whether by body the crucified "fleshly body of Jesus" or the pneumatic body of the Glorified One is intended. "The doxa-body of the exalted Christ is identical with the body put to death on the cross."

47. So Robinson: Jesus' body and blood here mean Jesus' "actual self, His life and personality" (The Body, p. 57).

48. J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, 2nd ed., p. 144 (3rd ed., p. 222).

49. For this explanation see also, e.g., E. Gaugler, Das Abendmahl im N.T., 1943, p. 52; E. P. Groenewald, [KOINONIA] (Gemeenskap) by Paulus, 1932, pp. 105-115; my The Coming of the Kingdom, p. 427. Very clearly Matter as well (De Kerk, p. 24).

50 On this at length see further Section 66 under a.

51. That the unity of the body of the church is inferred from the one bread (and not from the one body) is of importance. According to the ancient eastern idea the rite of the breaking of bread establishes the fellowship of the table (cf. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, 2nd ed., pp. 153f. [3rd ed., p. 232], and the literature mentioned there). It appears from all this that the course of Paul's reasoning is not determined by the identification idea.

52. Cf. E. Käsemann, "The Pauline Doctrine of the Lord's Supper," Essays on New Testament Themes, p. 110: "Paul for his part agrees with this conception [namely, that of the traditional significance of 'body'] but in v. 17 gives it a new turn."

53. Cf. above, Sections 37 and 38.

54. Poiēsas ta amphotera hen.

55. Hina tous duo ktisē eis hena kainon anthrōpon.

56. Apokatallaxē tous amphoterous en heni sōmati.

57. En heni sōmati, e.g., is understood by Dibeiius-Greeven of the church; cf. the Dutch Bible Society translation: "tot een lichaam verbonden." Percy understands it of the historical body of Christ on the cross and refers to Rom. 7:4; Col. 1:22 (Der Leib Christi, pp. 39, 42; Probleme, p. 109). In view of the parallel pronouncement in Col. 1:22 and of the words following in Eph. 2:16 ("dia tou staurou"), this view does indeed have more to be said for it.

58. One can observe how closely the thought of Christ's own historical body and that of the church as the body of Christ here approach each other. But it is also clear that one may not identify them with each other. For the one new man

(the one body) is not identical with the historical body of Christ, but is "created" by him as a new unity.

59. Above, p. 372.

60. The meaning of vv. 31-33 is not entirely certain and is interpreted rather differently. In our view Paul quotes Gen. 2:24 in v. 31 in order to give expression with the words of Scripture to the idea of the one flesh, of which there has been frequent mention in the foregoing both with a view to marriage and to the unity of Christ. This being one flesh (one body) is a great mystery. Paul, however — regardless of how others speak of it, ego de —speaks of it with an eye to Christ and the church, and understands this unity in the light of that relationship, as he has done continuously in the foregoing. V. 32 thus gives no allegorical sense to Gen. 2:24 (as if the church were spoken of there), but points for the understanding of the mystery, that two parties can be one flesh, to the relationship of Christ and the church. For this engages the apostle in this whole pericope no less than the unity of marriage. The conclusion in v. 33 introduced with plēn ("but let each one of you also love his wife as himself...") then says that, however one chooses to view this further, believing husbands are to love their wives as themselves (for this use of plēn cf. Bl.-Debr., Par. 449, 2).

61. Cf., e.g., Percy, Der Leib Christi, pp. 52ff.

62. The view that by pan to sōma, not the church, but "the all" is intended is to be rejected with certainty; cf. further my Col., p. 195.

63. For the literature see the full discussion of this question in J. H. Roberts, Die Opbou van die Kerk volgens die Efese- brief, 1963, pp. 94, 95.

64. Cf. I. J. Du Plessis, Christus as Hoof van Kerk en Kosmos, 1962, p. 81; Roberts, ibid., p. 96. However, see also P. Benoit, Revue Biblique, 1956, p. 27, who for the opposite opinion refers to Plato, Hippocrates, and Galen. But whether Paul can be regarded as dependent on these very special ideas seems very dubious.

65. See Benoit, ibid., pp. 24ff.; see also the following note, however.

66. Benoit proceeds from this general significance of "head" (ibid., pp. 25ff.), with which he then attempts to combine the thought of the organic-physiological bond between body and head (p. 27). He calls this "a very felicitous adaptation," but thus arrives at a combination of two very different ideas of head, which are in our view very difficult to combine with each other, one from the Semitic and one from the Greek world (pp. 25 and 27). To the same effect J. Dupont, Gnosis, 1949, pp. 450ff.

67. Cf. above, Section 13.

68. Especially in his Christus und die Kirche im Epheserbrief, 1930.

69. Leib und Leib Christi, 1933.

70. Die Kirche, pp. 239, 240.

71. See also the article of Schlier, TDNT, III, pp. 673ff., s.v. kephalē.

72. For the so-called doctrine of "the redeemed Redeemer" see already above, pp. 28, 35ft.

73. Cf. especially H. M. Schenke, Der Gott ' Mens' in der Gnosis, Ein religionsgeschichtlicher Beitrag zur Diskussion über die paulinische Anschauung von der Kirche als Leib Christi, 1962. He has examined all of the materials afresh and concludes: "Thus it is necessary to take leave of the very interesting theory of Schlier and Käsemann" (p. 155).

74. Roberts also rightly points to this (Die Opbou, p. 96): "The gnostic interpretation [of Schlier] . . . does not, however, lead to a much more conceivable picture of the thought, for here the ordinary human body and its relations is only exchanged for the cosmic Anthropos-form with its giant body.... This Anthropos is [still according to the interpretation of Schlier opposed by Roberts] really the complete body and at the same time (as Redeemer) distinguishable as the head who gathers to himself, for it is a matter here of the myth of the unity of God and the soul." Still without regard therefore to the fundamental irreconcilability of the gnostic myth and the Pauline kerygma, the former cannot serve in any respect whatever as the interpretative key of the Pauline idea. Others, as Schweizer, for example, deny that the concept body occurs at all in Gnosticism as a "giant-body" containing all redeemed souls within itself ("Die Kirche," TLZ, 1961, cols. 162ff.).

75. See already Percy, Der Leib Christi, pp. 39ff.; also his Probleme, p. 112; Hanson, The Unity of the Church, pp. 113ft.; Cerfaux, The Church in St. Paul, pp. 370ft.; Benoit, Revue Biblique, 1956, pp. 17ff.; Meuzelaar, Der Leib des Messias, pp. 8ff.; I. J. Du Plessis, Christus as Hoof van Kerk en Kosmos, pp. 7ff.; Schweizer, "Die Kirche," TLZ, 1961.

76. Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 1955.

77. Ibid., p. 57.

78. Schweizer summarizes thus in his valuable article "Die Kirche als Leib Christi in den paulinischen Antilegomena," TLZ, 1961, col. 255.

79. Such publications as the following move in this direction — publications that otherwise provide a shaded interpretation of the Pauline use of the concept head: L. S. Thornton, "The Body of Christ in the New Testament," in The Apostolic Ministry, 3rd ed., 1957, to the point, pp. 68ff.; S. F. B. Bedale, "The Meaning of [kephalē] in the Pauline Epistles," in Journal of Theol. Studies, 1954, pp. 211ff.; Meuzelaar, Der Leib des Messias, pp. 117ft.; I. J. Du Plessis, Christus as Hoof, pp. 22ff.; Roberts, Die Opbou, pp. 96ff.

80. E. P. Groenewald also writes to this effect in "Die Ekklesia in die Nuwe Testament," in Ned. Geref. Teologiese Tydskrif, 1962, p. 393, i.a., with a reference to Rom. 7:24. That by sōma tou thanatou Paul means the body of which Adam is the head demands further semasiological proof, however.

81. That in the meantime the conception of the church as "Leib Christi" has its origin in that of "Weib Christi" and in the fact that the wife in Eph. 5 is equated with the body of the husband, as is argued by Dom Casel, seems to us too weak, motivated only on the ground of Eph. 5:28 (for this conception see Wikenhauser, Die Kirche, p. 231). Certainly this passage contains an important indication as to the direction in which and the background against which the solution of the terminological question must be sought.

82. Cf. the sparse materials in Schweizer, "Die Kirche," TLZ, 1961, col. 245, n. 14.

83. So Meuzelaar, Der Leib des Messias, p. 121.

84. Cf. above, Section 13.

85. For the heresy in Colosse see further my Excursus in Col., pp. 198-202; cf. pp. 105ff.

86. For this subject see in particular F. Mussner, Christus, das All und die Kirche, 1955; I. J. Du Plessis, Christus as Hoof van Kerk en Kosmos. Further M. A. Wagenführer, Die Bedeutung Christi für Welt und Kirche, 1941; P. Benoit, "Corps, tête et plérôme dans les Épîtres de la captivité," Revue Biblique, 1956, pp. 5-44.

87. This terminology is not derived from Paul himself. For he does not speak in this connection of kosmos, but of ta panta: all things, the all or universe.

88. For the significance of these "powers" see my Col., pp. 141ff.; I. J. Du Plessis, Christus as Hoof, pp. 53ff.; W. Caird, Principalities and Powers, A Study in Pauline Theology, 1956; G. H. C. Macgregor, "Principalities and Powers," in NTS, 1956, pp. 19ff.

89. Cf. above, Section 13.

90. The question as to whether this also started from the concept "fullness" is difficult to answer. Despite all the speculations on the heresy at Colosse, we know too little about it. And just as uncertain is the connection that some have wished to make between this heresy and the pleroma ideas in later Gnosticism; see also the essay by G. Münderlein, "Die Erwählung durch das Pleroma," NTS, 1962, pp. 264ff.

91. At least if one is to take pan to plērōma as the subject of eudokēsen and katoikēsa, which is highly probable in view of the same combination of plērōma and katoikei in Col. 2:9; see further my Col., p. 146. Others wish to understand plērōma in 1:19, not of God, but of the universe filled by God, which God has made to dwell in Christ; cf., e.g., the translation and explanation of Benoit in La Sainte Bible, 1949, pp. 55f. Some choose also to carry this translation through into Col. 2:9, where by pan to plērōma tes theotētos is then understood that which is filled by divine virtue ("that which is filled with the divine virtue, the whole sphere where the divine virtue exercises itself, dwells in Christ"). That is, therefore, the universe. So J. Dupont, Gnosis, 1949, p. 475. But this leads to very labored translations and rests on the pantheistic stoic idea that the universe can be called the fullness, the pleroma of the deity, which is something other than the Old Testament idea that God fills the universe. We shall, therefore, as is most clearly apparent from Col. 2:9, with pan to plērōma first of all have to think of God's own fullness in the sense of the allembracing character of God's relation to and power over the world. In 1:19 Münderlein wants to think of the Holy Spirit and understand the aorist eudōkēsen of the baptism of Christ (in NTS, 1962, pp. 270, 272). In 2:9 Christ would then be defined as "incarnation of the Spirit of God... and indeed in his sovereign position" (p. 273). In our view it is indeed a question of a category of omnipotence, and therefore the reference to Christ's baptism does not seem in place.

92. The background of this expression has been sought in various directions: in the syncretistic literature, characterized as gnostic, of the Hellenistic Umwelt (Schlier, Dibelius), in the Stoa (Dupont, Benoit), then again in the rabbinic literature (Meuzelaar, Münderlein). The difficulty is that the literature in which plērōma does occur as a denotation of the deity (as in the Hermetic writings and the Odes of Solomon) is content-wise the farthest removed from Paul; that the Stoa did know the idea of the filling of all things by the deity, but did not speak of this in this absolute sense of the Pleroma. The same thing applies to the Old Testament and rabbinic writings, although there of course no pantheistic principle of life is understood by this filling of all things by God, as in the case of the Stoics. It is very difficult therefore to introduce anything that gives the exegesis of plērōma support (cf. Delling, TDNT, VI, pp. 302ff., s.v. plērōma). For all the materials see the detailed expositions of Dupont, Gnosis, pp. 419-493 ("Plenitude Cosmique").

93. Cf. Münderlein, NTS, 1962, p. 275: "This concept cannot mean the 'essence of that which constitutes God'... but it designates God . . . as active, almighty Lord over creation and history."

94. The words en autō eudokēsen... katoikēsai are apparently borrowed from Ps. 67:17 LXX. This also argues for the intransitive translation of katoikesai.

95. The significance of sōmatikōs is very differently conceived. See the discussion of seven different interpretations in my Col., pp. 17ff.

96. LXX: me ouchi ton ouranon kai tēn gēn egō plērō? legei Kyrios. Cf. Delling, TDNT, VI, p. 288, and above all Münderlein, NTS, 1962, pp. 266, 270.

97. Ta panta en pasin plēroumenou. We understand ta panta, then, in the sense in which it is used in 4:10 (also with plēroō!). En pasin: in all respects; what is meant is that Christ asserts the fullness of his power everywhere and in every respect, also in every creature. One can also take en pasin instrumentally ( = dia pantōn: "With ail the powers which go forth from Him Christ rules over and among all the forces which have become subject to Him"; Delling, TDNT, VI, p. 292). Others think that ta panta en pasin must be understood of the church and appeal to Col. 3:11: "filling all in all the members of the church" (Masson, l'Epitre de Saint Paul aux Colossiens, p. 156). But after to plērōma, which must also be understood of the church (see below), this sounds somewhat tautological

98. On the "four dimensions" see the full discussion in Dupont, Gnosis, pp. 476-489.

99. Percy, Probleme, pp. 384ff., and Delling, TDNT, VI, p. 304, otherwise correctly emphasize that plērōma in Eph. and Col. is not used in entirely the same sense, but with considerable differentiation.

100. That plērōma is to be understood here as "completion" (in the sense that Christ would find a certain completion in the church as his body; so already ancient Greek interpreters; cf. K. Staab, Pauluskommentare aus der griechischen Kirche, 1933, p. 320; of the later writers, e.g., Dibelius, Col., p. 65; P. Ewald, Die Briefe des Paulus an die Epheser, 2nd ed., 1910, p. 104) has been conclusively refuted by Percy, among others (Der Leib Christi, pp. 50ff.; Probleme, p. 384).

101. See, e.g., H. Berkhof, De katholiciteit der Kerk, 1962, pp. 61ff.; I. J . Du Plessis, Christus as Hoof, pp. 116ff.

102. Cf. above, pp. 148f.

103. According to Bultmann a difference reveals itself here between Eph. and Col. and the epistles of Paul that he accepts as genuine. He describes this as follows: "Whereas according to Paul the victory of Christ over the cosmic powers is yet to be awaited as the event of the coming last time... in the other view the victory is already gained" ( History and Eschatology, p. 55). And accordingly the "historicizing" and "neutralizing" of eschatology in its progress demonstrates itself in these epistles. But in the (other) epistles of Paul, too, the starting point of the paraenesis lies in the victory Christ has already achieved over the powers (cf., e.g., Rom. 8:37, 38). How much the point of view of the "not yet" also plays a role in Eph. and Col. is evident from what follows (see above in the text).

104. For this exegesis of "reconcile" see my Col., pp. 147ff., i.a., against the view of Michaelis, Versohnung des Alls, 1950, pp. 27ff., who also wishes to think here of a restoration of peace with God in the personal sense of the word. Against that see Percy, Probleme, p. 95, and Benoit, La Sainte Bible, p. 31.

105. For this peculiar use of the expression en tois epouraniois in comparison with ouranos, see H. Odeberg, The View of the Universe in the Epistle to the Ephesians, pp. 4ff.

106. Cf. C. Müller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit und Gottes Volk, pp. 102ff.

107. Cf. Gal. 3:19, 20.

108. So Müller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit, p. 103, and Schlier, Gal., p. 130.

109. Müller, ibid., p. 104. By what is here denoted "at bottom" Müller means "on the basis of its gnostic origin."

110. Cf. above, pp. 383ff.

111. Cf. above, pp. 377ff.

112. Whether one chooses to include in the concept "catholicity" (of the church) this connection of the church with "all things" established in Christ, as Berkhof wishes to do (De katholiciteit der Kerk, p. 59), is in our view not a question of exegesis, but of dogma-historical usage. There can be no doubt about the matter itself.

↑ Back to top

Ix The Church As The Body Of Christ