Where does the term Body of Christ first appear in the Bible?
The term “Body of Christ” first appears only in the Apostle Paul’s writings, not in the Old Testament, the Gospels, or the early chapters of Acts. It belongs to the revelation given to Paul after Acts 9, when God turned from Israel to the Gentiles and revealed the Pauline message.
Les explains that the term “the Body of Christ” is absent from the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the early book of Acts. It does not appear until you get to Paul. After Israel rejected and crucified their Messiah, God turned through the Apostle Paul to the heathen or Gentile. Les points to Galatians 1:11 as the real basis of it: Paul’s gospel was not after man; he neither received it of man nor was taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. At his conversion on the road to Damascus, the Lord said He would send Paul far hence to the Gentiles. Rather than immediately going back to Jerusalem to check with Peter and the twelve, Paul was sent down into Sinai and Arabia, where evidently for three years the Lord laid on him a whole revelation of things never hinted at in Scripture.