Robinson's stress on solidarity as the leading motif in sōma leads into the Pauline concept of the Church as the Body of Christ. That concept warrants a whole book. Here we can afford to touch only those aspects which relate most directly to the anthropological use of sōma. Yet it is necessary to do at least that much because a distinction between the anthropological and ecclesiastical uses of sōma is commonly denied nowadays. Once again, by applying what we have learned concerning the use of sōma to current opinions, we shall increase our understanding of the Body of Christ.

As might be expected, the private individualism of Bultmann deeply affects his interpretation of the Church as Christ's Body. He does recognize the communal element, but plays it down as secondary. The main point is not that Christians constitute the Body, but that Christ constitutes the Body. Therefore the Body was there as a cosmic entity before Christians came into being and remains there now above them. The ‘Body of Christ’ indicates, then, primarily the supramundane, transcendental origin of the Church.

A chief difficulty here lies in the failure of Paul to stress, or even to mention, the temporal priority of the Body of Christ over Christians, or its transcendence above the earthly Church. In fact, Paul's comments point the other way. For all we can see, the Body of Christ has no existence apart from the historical Church on earth.