NOTES for Co1 12:27
The definition of the Church, as the body of Christ, became today almost a reading-book. However it is usually understood rather allegorically, it is supposed that the apostle spoke about a certain "spiritual" unity, by which they generally mean the unity of "faith" (by implying by this a dogma), the conformity of ideas, unanimity and other things of this kind, not going beyond the frame of our world, not yet transformed till the end.
And what the apostle wanted to say? To understand it, it is necessary to remember that in the evangelic time was generally perceived in the Jewish environment the view of Jewish people, as a single spiritual whole. And this integrity was not only defined by a national or religious consciousness, but by the fact that the Jewish people, as people of God, are sanctified by this God's presence, which dwells in the Temple of Jerusalem. And were sanctified by this presence in particular all the people, and not only the part of it, which was in Jerusalem for another feast.
That’s how was understood in the Judaism what we usually call spiritual unity. It existed, as an objective reality, and was implied to everyone, who belonged to the people, and this sanctification became updated in the sacred meetings, which included not only the sacrificial meals of the Temple, but also community meetings, as the synagogue quite as domestic, during which came true the breaking of the bread (examples of such domestic meetings can be, for example, the Sabbath or the Passover Seder).
Paul, who looks at the Church, as the messianic remnant chosen by God, transfers on it traditional and doubtless which are well known to him representations of the people of God, as a single spiritual whole. But he connects this spiritual unity already not with the Temple, but with the personality of the Savior, Who sanctifies those who belong to His Kingdom, quite as the Temple sanctifies all those who belong to the Jewish people. The body of Christ for him, as seen, is a new spiritual body of the new people of God. People with this new Covenant, about which had spoken the prophets.