The Cradle Of Christian Truth: Apostles’ Creed (Part 16)—The Communion of the Saints

by on May 20, 2025 | Comment

The phrase often goes around that “blood is thicker than water.” One of the ways people use this phrase is to mean that family relationships are more important than relationships made by baptism. In other words, when a family member does something wrong, they might say, “Hey, blood is thicker than water.” By this, they let you know they expect you to be on their side just because they are your family, although your churchly commitments ask you to do the right thing, no matter who is involved.

We need to think about what it means to be the communion of the saints. In the Apostles’ Creed under this section about the Spirit and his work, we saw first how Christ by the Spirit established the church. Now, we see what the Spirit’s work in the church looks like as he creates a special relationship to one another. We need one another and need to live out the special communion that the Spirit works among members of the church.

1 Corinthians 12:12–31 is about why God has gifted his church with people who have diverse gifts. The most striking thing is that the very reason for having many types of gifts is to make a unified church, a deep union in the communion of the saints.

The main point is that being a Christian is a family affair. The beauty of this point is that it is a theological principle and a practical application. We are a family in this church, more and more learning to live like one each day.

Family Foundation

This point outlines a foundation for thinking about the unity of the church, considering our differences. In other words, what ties us together? With so many people, of such different personalities, dreams, goals, and ways of going about life, what is God doing by putting us all together? In verses 12–13, the Spirit is the great unifying factor in making us one family.

Previously in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul addressed confusion over spiritual gifts, recalibrating how the Corinthians were measuring gifts for which was more prestigious rather than understanding that all the gifts are for the common good of the church. The diversity of gifts is about building up the church, meaning we need the variety to work properly as the church. We all need each other, and no one is expendable or extra.

So, we read Paul’s profound statements in 12:12–13, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” First, that we were all baptized in one Spirit means that the Spirit is poured into us. Just as we are baptized by water, when water is sprinkled onto us, we are baptized in the Spirit when the Spirit is poured into our hearts. Every believer receives this Spirit since we are all baptized with the Spirit, poured into each of our hearts.

This has a deeply unifying significance. All the spiritual gifts are spiritual because they come from the Spirit in us. All varieties of gifts come from the one and the same Spirit. All manifest the Spirit at work in different types of people. We do not get to disregard any of the gifts because they all come from the One Spirit. Very special people have those gifts because everyone with a spiritual gift has drunk of the Spirit.

The family foundation is the Holy Spirit himself. The family foundation is that each of us who trusts in Christ has his Spirit in our hearts. We are all equals in the highest way in the house of God because there is no way to decide whose gift better displays a person of the Trinity at work among us.

Family Functions

Since the Spirit is the single source of all the gifts at work within Christ’s church, all the gifts are valuable. That means that everyone who has those gifts is valuable. If we cannot disregard any of the gifts, then neither can we disregard any people who exercise those gifts.

Our first avenue of application addresses how pride is a sin that easily overtakes us as individuals or as a church. Pride also takes many forms. Pride is good at changing costumes and playing many characters. The specific expression of pride that this passage highlights is the tendency to think we are better than those around us.

We must be on guard for this pride because we so easily start measuring ourselves against others. The sinful heart is so full of insecurity because it knows we are broken. Instead of running to Christ to find our worth and value, we try to stack up a better resume than the person next to us, and, if we do not see ways we think we are better, we just lie to ourselves about it. We invent reasons that we are better than others.

Have you ever wondered why insults are such a common occurrence in every aspect of our lives? We talk about insults like they are a child’s activity. We say things like, “Young people can be so cruel.” Young people? I am not sure that old people insult each other any less, but I am sure that they are better at doing it. We hit a certain age, and it becomes no longer socially acceptable to get our feelings hurt. So, we bury the injuries instead of fighting back. It is not that people have quit insulting us. It is not that we do not know people are talking about us behind our backs or coming up with reasons to complain about us. What has changed is that we just accept that people are unloving, conniving, and frankly, mean.

Insults are so common, sometimes even in Christ’s church, because we need a way to feel better about ourselves. If we can tear that person down, we can set ourselves just a little higher than they are, at least in our own minds.

That this prideful need to tear each other down for our own sake is sin is highlighted by how, in every part of life, we have to work with other people. If you work with computers, you need the guys at the power plant to keep the lights running. If you are a salesman, you need people to deliver the products you have sold. If you are a surgeon, you need the guys who make that scalpel sharp enough to do its work. We should not look down on others because we are all dependent on others.

Our body is a perfect illustration of this. What would you think if you walked into your home tonight and all the chairs around your table were filled with piles of various body parts? In one chair, a stack of hands. In the next chair, piles of ears. At the last chair, a huge bucket of eyeballs. Disgusting, right? Nobody wants piles of body parts stacked together because it is gross. It is a distortion and abuse of the human body. We want whole people at our table.

But this brings us right back to 1 Corinthians 12:21–25:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

All the parts work together to make us a well-working church. The family function is to work together, loving each other and using our gifts for the good of others. The family function is our need for each other. The family function is that we see each other as blessings.

Family Formation

This point is about working together to build the body of Christ. Imagine that you walk into a gym. It is full of weights, treadmills, and workout machines. All around you are really fit people able to do impressive things. You go to the biggest, strongest looking guy and ask him, “So how do I get so strong?” In other words, you want to know how to make your body like that.

This guy is really going to say one thing: “I work really hard, plan my workouts to increase my fitness in the most efficient ways, and I meticulously manage my diet so that I have all the nutrients my body needs to develop and sustain my muscles.” It always boils down to intentional exercise and a balanced diet.

Perhaps not surprisingly, as we think about developing the body of Christ, strengthening his body, the same principle still holds. God’s people, as the people of God, need spiritual diet and spiritual exercise. That is the key to having a fit church. So how do we do this? What can we do to grow the church stronger and healthier? What forms the church?

First, maintain a solid spiritual diet. The primary meal of the body of Christ is the preached Word in Lord’s Day worship. For whatever reason, as foolish as it may seem, God has promised to use his Word preached to change his people. Even when sermons do not specifically address the sins you face or the struggles you have, God is using continual exposure to the preached Word to shape and cleanse believers’ hearts.

Here is the connection to our text, though. We receive that diet together. We are all in this room, even me, with the same sermon ringing about us. We all come each week having walked very different paths, being ingrained in various mindsets, and having heard very different messages from the world. That is one reason why the preached Word differs from your individual Bible study, as good and needed as that is. Here, we all come to the same text pushing toward the same application and confession of Christ together.

We are shaped as Christ’s body as we sit under the Word together, reminded of how we each equally come to the same Christ for grace and journey together through this life as God’s people. God’s Word is our diet, teaching us how to be Christ’s Body and about our head, Christ himself. The Word kneads us more thoroughly into the communion of saints.

After diet, second, we strengthen the body through exercise, which we do simply by being together. Just like you want to keep all your body parts together, working within your own body, the body parts of the Body of Christ need to be kept together as well. Verses 14–20:

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The foot must be on the leg to run. The eye must be connected to the brain to see. The hand must have fingers to move things. All the parts work together to make life good.

Family formation is the purposeful growing together for the common good. Family formation is the work we do to strengthen our relationships and to encourage and build up each other. God is glorified in this because he is the one authoring this unity among us, even though he brings this about as we work together and love one another.

That brings us full circle to blood is thicker than water. The thing is, the family that God creates by knitting us together under baptism is stronger than biological links. And yet, there is precious blood that stands behind it and makes it thick. The blood of Christ is that which washes our sins away. The blood of Christ shed at the cross makes us righteous in God’s sight. And it is that cleansing blood that baptism signifies. It is Christ’s work that binds us as an everlasting family. Today is our family reunion to celebrate our eldest brother, the Lord Jesus who has given you life. . . and given us a family, the communion of the saints.

©Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

You can find the whole series here.

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