What does it mean that Jews and Gentiles, bond and free, all drank of the same Spirit?
Scripture teaches that by one Spirit every believer—Jew or Gentile, bond or free—is baptized into the Body of Christ. All equally drink or partake of the same Holy Spirit, regardless of station in life. This makes them one body while each remains a particular member, individually known by God.
Les explains that the word “all” in 1 Corinthians 12:13 is emphatic: it is not only the most spiritual who are baptized into the body, but every believer, whatever station in life. When a person becomes a believer and child of God, the Holy Spirit baptizes that person into the Body of Christ. Whether Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, all are made to drink or partake of the same Spirit, which is part and parcel of the Body of Christ. Les notes that Peter may not have gotten the whole story and that most people today do not comprehend the believer’s position in Christ: already seated in the heavenlies and waiting to be taken up into union with Christ Himself. Yet verse 27 shows they are the Body of Christ in total and members in particular. They do not lose identity; God knows each by name, not by a number or group. Ephesians 1 presents Christ as Head of the Body, raised from the dead and set at God’s own right hand in the heavenlies—that is the believer’s position—far above all principality, power, might, dominion, and every name named, in this world and the one to come.
For the body is not one member, but many.