I was going to post to Cassidy earlier, but I was waiting for him to reply to Jane about 1st Cor. 6:17 (since he stated that he would reply after some consideration). Since it has been over a week and a half since his post to her, it seems that he may not return. And, since some have referenced the posts of his that I was going to address, I thought that I should put this out to try and get to the truth.
Cassidy,
I wrote in post #108 that the text of 1 Cor. 12:12 does not plainly state that “Christ is the Body.” This may not have registered with you, since you have not responded.
What you wrote
Here’s what you wrote in #87:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cassidy
OBW,
...
As pertains to the body of Christ, even if you were to relegate the meaning of I Cor 12 to simply a functioning of member, coordination, or cooperation like the 82nd Ariborne you deny the plain statement of the text for it does not say only that Christ is the Head, it says that Christ is the Body.
For, even as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the one body, being many, are one body, so also [is] the Christ, 1Cor 12:12
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I find it interesting that you quote from the Bible and even bring in some Greek in other posts but seem not to really understand the plain English of 1 Cor. 12:12 to which you refer.
A degree of English
Notice that the text of 1 Cor. 12:12 is written as a comparison with two sides, if you will, like an equation. I will use different words (hopefully, disentangling it from the “Body” theology of Witness Lee), to express the basic meaning of the two sides of the linguistic equation that Paul gave us in this verse:
- A physical, human form is one whole made up of many parts.
- Christ’s form is the same (that is, one whole made up of many parts).
This is the most elementary description of the meaning of 12:12 read in isolation from the rest of the chapter. I am not maintaining that this is the only meaning that one can glean from this text. Keep in mind that I’m writing about the meaning of an English sentence and not about theology.
Regardless how you read the plain, basic English of 1 Cor. 12:12 and consider its structure, the text
does not state plainly that “Christ is the Body,” as you emphatically stated, using red and underlined fonts. Not only that, the text doesn’t even state that “Christ is the Head,” which you also stated that it does.
Additionally, although I’ve limited my discussion to 1 Cor. 12:12, which was your text, I don’t believe you can find support for your “Christ is the Body” statement anywhere in chapter 12. In fact, chapter 12 says that the body is made up of many members (14) and it indicates that the head is just another one of the members (21).