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The gifts of the Holy Spirit
1 Corinthians 12:1-3 “Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I tell you that no-one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no-one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
The Corinthian congregation has probably sent a list of questions or problems to Paul and one by one he has been answering them through the first eleven chapters of this letter, divisions in the church, so-called apostles, a Christian involved in immorality, lawsuits among believers, marriage, food sacrificed to idols, idol feasts and the Lord’s Supper, and then this issue, what appears to have been one of their biggest problems, and so is dealt with at length by Paul. What is spirituality? What do we look for in a very spiritual man? Can we test the spirit of a Christian? Do we simply believe the claims made by each one? Do we place our confidence in a woman’s glowing face and shining eyes? Is that the mark of spirituality? How do we become a congregation of the Spirit? That is the issue Paul is beginning to examine in this twelfth chapter of I Corinthians. The gifts were presenting every single New Testament church but they had only become a problem in the Corinthian congregation, and so here we have this valuable and essential teaching.
- THE FOCUS OF THE TRULY SPIRITUAL PERSON IS ON CHRIST.
So Paul begins by removing the rubble and getting down to the foundations. He reminds these new Christians of their pagan past in Corinth; “somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols.” (v.2). The N.I.V. translates it, ‘influenced and led astray,’ but the New King James is better, “carried away”, that is in their pre-Christian lives they had been overpowered and carried away to serve the dumb heathen gods. In those temple services they had found little intellectual stimulation or ethical teaching to feed on. So what had drawn them? Their emotions had been roused by what they saw and heard in the temples, the drumming, the rituals, the cries and swooning, and all before mute idols! They had been psychologically manipulated by the whole choreography of pagan worship, and Paul begins by contrasting that with the Christian faith. He is telling them that the experience of being carried away, which they knew only too well to their great harm, was not of the essence of real spirituality. Fanatical religions, orators like Hitler, and cult leaders can orchestrate that kind of response without any difficulty. It is no proof that the Spirit of God is present that people are swept away by something. That is no proof that there is any truth at all in what you are hearing. Think of the millions who meet in mass gatherings in different parts of the world claiming enlightenment and empowerment through the experience. So at the very outset of this section, when the inspired apostle is dealing with true spirituality, he begins by warning them of the emptiness of being carried away.
So what is the mark of the presence and operation of the Spirit of God? This is what Paul says, “I tell you that no-one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no-one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (v.3). The essential proof of the Spirit’s presence in a person is when that person says from their hearts, “Jesus is Lord.” When that confession is made then the confesser is my brother or my sister. If you have experienced the regenerating work of the Spirit, that is, if you have been truly born again, then the evidence of the Spirit’s work in your life is your acknowledging, “Jesus is Lord.”
You make a believing statement, but you are also making a thoughtful statement. It comes from your intellect. The confession is not produced by a mere wave of emotion. Your mind has been exercised; you put together words and concepts in sentences, and this is typical of the entire Bible’s approach to spirituality. The Scripture sets out the revelation of God in prophecies and psalms and writings, in gospels and in letters, some of the most profound pieces of writing that the world has ever seen. True spirituality is explained in the letters of Paul, for example, to the churches in Rome and in Ephesus. The biblical connection between the Spirit and what the apostles have written and how we readers respond today (or in New Testament times, how the hearers responded) in words and statements, is essential for attaining true spirituality. The basic evidence of the Spirit powerfully at work was in inspiring the apostles and leading them into all truth in their preaching and writing. Then the Spirit created trust and the obedience of faith in the lives of Christians as they read the words of the apostles. Then these Christian hearers and readers opened their mouths and spoke their own personal confession; “Jesus is Lord.” They didn’t talk about themselves and their excitement, the electric feelings going up and down their spines, the tears, or the laughter. They don’t talk of the ecstasy or the thrill of it all. True spirituality is found in talking of Jesus Christ, saying that he is God, confessing that he is your Lord and your God, and this is done intelligibly and intelligently. The spiritual man speaks and lives in an utterly Christ-centred way. For to him to live is Christ. Religious egotists were beginning to infiltrate the Corinthian congregation, but Paul is saying that the truly Spirit-filled man preeminently talks of Christ as his Lord. He confesses that Jesus of Nazareth - the earthly, human Jesus - is the incarnate Jehovah. He bears witness to the Lordship of the flesh and blood reality of the virgin born carpenter from Galilee.
Before they became Christians the peak of their rotten old religion was the feeling, “We are being carried away by spiritual forces.” But when you have a real spiritual experience, when the Holy Spirit is at work in your life, then you become obsessed with the Lord Jesus Christ, honouring him, glorifying him, worshipping him by ascribing deity to him. The man most full of the Spirit is the man most full of Jesus Christ.
- THE SPIRITUAL GIFTS ARE ABOUT SERVING ONE ANOTHER; THEY ARE FOR THE COMMON GOOD.
In verses four through seven Paul says these words, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (I Cor. 12:4-7). We have seen that the evidence of the Spirit in a person or in a congregation is in making the greatest possible statements about Jesus, that he is Jehovah and worshipping him. However, this is not bring presented to us as some kind of mantra which the congregation must chant whenever it meets, “Jesus is Lord; Jesus is Lord.” It is not that at all. The life of the Spirit in an assembly of Christians is manifest in richly variegated ways. This great Lord is honoured in manifold appearances. There are varieties of ‘gifts,’ Paul says, and significantly he changes his vocabulary at this point in verse four, from the word pneumatika which presumably the Corinthians church has been using to the word charismata. The Corinthians had taken up the legacy of their previous ‘spiritualistic’ activity – the numinous, the exotic, the spooky and the ecstatic – and had brought too much of that into the kingdom of God with them, but Paul produces something different. He pulls out a new word, his own invented word, charismata, meaning ‘graces,’ or ‘a present of grace,’ or ‘grace-things.’ The new dimension and power that the Spirit creates in our lives is all through God’s extraordinary grace. Grace is God acting omnipotently in us forming a new nature, and providing in us new resources. The new life of the Christian is not due to his education or natural talents or his upbringing. The Christ-like graces produced by the Spirit have little to do with his brains, or talents, or his rich emotional life or his psychological resources. Not by those things at all, but by God’s free grace he works in us. Think of a cobbler like William Carey or an ex-soldier and tinker like John Bunyan and how those two men changed the church and the world. It was solely because of the Holy Spirit powerfully working in them gifting them.
“For every virtue we possess, and every victory won,
And every thought of holiness are his alone.”
So what is the function of the gifts of the Spirit? They are to help us in the service of the people of God, says Paul, “for different kinds of service” (v.5). Paul is referring to corporate sanctification, in other words, that one of the chief means of grace changing Christians and preparing them for heaven is the mysterious influence one believer has over another. Of course there is the preaching, the worship, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but there is also what has become known as ‘body life’ or ‘body ministry.’ I remind you of all those exhortations in the New Testament which contain the phrase ‘one another.’ Paul is saying that the spiritual gifts are given for different kinds of service, and we see how very different the service performed is by considering the ‘one another’ passages; love one another, be devoted to one another, give preference to one another, be like-minded with one another, do not judge one another, build up one another, accept one another, greet one another, wait for one another, care for one another, do not challenge one another, do not envy one another, bear the burdens of one another, forbear with one another, speak to one another, be subject to one another, regard highly one another, be truthful to one another, forgive one another, comfort one another, encourage one another, live in peace with one another, seek good for one another, exhort one another, stimulate one another, do not speak against one another, do not complain against one another, confess you sins to one another, pray for one another, be hospitable to one another, serve one another.
How absolutely overwhelming is our responsibility to one another in the congregation. How are you doing in the different kinds of service you are expected to give to your fellow Christians? They are not going to get any of that ministry from the world are they? They will only get it from fellow believers. So the question is are you serving them in this way. You say that you are weak and busy and don’t have the gifts. By nature you don’t have them, but you do have the ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life in the form of a rich variety of gifts in order to serve one another, because every single Christian has them.
So when God gives his gifts to his people it is not as the mark of exalted spiritual privilege making you a super-Christian. It is not for the sake of your own status as “the Minister” or for your own personal edification or enjoyment or distinction. Spiritual gifts are given in order to make you better servants of all the other Christians in your congregation. “The greatest among you shall be the servant of all,” said our Lord, and then he sends forth the gifting Spirit into your life to enable you to serve.
See how Paul proceeds to amplify that when he says that the ministry of the Spirit in us is for “working” (v.6). So a spiritual gift is a divine empowering provided by our heavenly Father to enable us to labour sacrificially, lovingly, patiently, not giving up on us at all. He enables us to keep going, and keep going. You soon discover after regeneration that you have a new energy source since by faith you’ve been united to the Holy Spirit. You have been plugged into the Spirit of God, joined to him by faith, and not you alone, of course, but every other Christian. Gifts of the Spirit are yours so that you can serve one another. You are able and willing to get down on your knees with a basin of water and towel to wash disciples’ feet.
Then Paul concludes that these gifts are all “for the common good” (v.7). See how he introduces that phrase with the words “the Holy Spirit is manifested here . . .” What an extraordinary statement. What do you expect to read about next when you meet such a phrase – “the Holy Spirit is manifested here . . .”? By . . . a rushing, mighty wind and cloven tongues of fire resting on men, or people swooning, or jumping, or crowing like cocks? How are they being carried away? What Paul actually goes on to say is this, “The manifestation of the Spirit is given . . . for the common good.” It is another focus on this ‘one another’ theme. Needy men and women are being served and people are working for others. The gifts of the Spirit are provided for the common good of the congregation. That is the fruit of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God! It is not in order that individuals get a high that the Spirit is apparent in our lives or congregations, but it’s for the good of the fellowship of believers.
- THE SPIRITUAL GIFTS ARE DISTRIBUTED AS THE SPIRIT HIMSELF DETERMINES.
“To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines” (vv. 8-11). Notice what gifts are set out in first place by the apostle? The message of wisdom and the message of knowledge. Those are given pre-eminence, in other words, gifts of intelligent and thoughtful utterance proceeding out of wise and knowledgeable lives, and all for the common good of the congregation. Thank God we have those gifts in such abundance in our own church. I don’t believe there’s an elder or a deacon who lacks the grace to give wise and knowledgeable words both privately and publicly. We all have a rich bestowal of gifts to give words and deeds of wisdom, and also the gifts to receive those wise words. What common benefits come to the whole congregation as a result.
Of course that is true for the other gifts mentioned, the gift of faith (or faithfulness), and the gift of prophetic declaration, the gifts of distinguishing between spirits, speaking in different kinds of tongues and interpreting them. Those gifts of grace would all have been valueless unless there’d already been wisdom, understanding and knowledge; and all those gifts were for edifying the congregation. Naturally that was the case with gifts of miraculous powers and healing. What a lifting up of the spirits of an entire congregation when desperately ill church members were restored to health again. What a burden lifted from their loved ones – see the spring in their step and joy on their faces again; the spiritual gifts are all to the common good of the congregation. They all come from the Spirit, and he gives them to each Christian as he wills. You may not name a spiritual gift and claim a spiritual gift as your own. Even in the first century, when some of these gifts were sign gifts confirming the truth of the apostles, you couldn’t say, “Give me now the gift of miraculous powers, or give me the gift to speak a Celtic language.” The Spirit was sovereign in the first century to give to each Christian what gifts he chose, just as he determined as he is sovereign now.
- EVERY CHRISTIAN IS BAPTIZED BY ONE AND THE SAME SPIRIT INTO THE ONE BODY OF CHRIST.
“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” (vv. 12&13). Here Paul gets so close to saying, “baptism in the Holy Spirit’ but he, like every other New Testament writer, never uses the phrase, “baptism in the Holy Spirit.” It is nowhere found in the Bible. It is always baptism ‘with’ or ‘by’ the Spirit. The theme that Paul returns to again in this verse is of the wonderful privileges which all the members of the Corinthian congregation have received in Christ. In fact that is how this entire epistle begins in chapter one and verses one and two. That is how he greets them as he declares to them their glorious privileges. They are members of one body – every single one of them. They have all been baptized by one Spirit into this one body, no one left outside it, and they have all been given the one Spirit to drink. There are not two bodies, one for those who have made a profession of faith and then another spiritual baptism for those who are ‘entirely consecrated.’ All are baptized by one Spirit into one body. Baptism into the body of Christ is not some Spirit-less activity which needs later to be upgraded into Spirit baptism. One Spirit baptizes every one of us. We are dry and thirsty sinners with nothing in the world to quench our thirst. “Then drink the Spirit!” Paul cries. Take him into your life. What refreshment and new life come from him.
This baptism is not the privilege of the hyper-Christian, the one who’s had the second blessing, or the one who’s succeeded in laying ‘all upon the altar’ (if he has managed to do that before getting the ‘baptism’ he hardly needs the ‘baptism’). It is the privilege of all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are baptized by one Spirit into one body, and that is true for the weakest lamb in the flock of Christ; it is true for the newest Christian; it is true for the backslider; it is true for the Christian guilty of terrible sin. Committing that particular sin has not amputated him from the body; it has not disconnected his membership. What shall I do with you when you have behaved in a particularly abominable sub-Christian manner? I will take the wonderful privileges that the Spirit has given you and I will beat you with them. How can you who died to the dominion that sin once had over you go back and live one moment longer in that way?
- WHAT VARIETY AND YET WHAT HARMONY EXIST IN THE BODY OF CHRIST.
The final long section of this chapter twelve of I Corinthians from verse fourteen to the end of the chapter is fascinating description of the various organs and limbs of the human body. Some of them are certainly more prominent than others, but that is purely of a functional nature. The point is that all the parts are needed and used, particularly the less aesthetically pleasing parts. They are just as necessary! Let none of the seemingly less attractive parts of the body feel any sense of spiritual inferiority in their proximity to the supposedly more significant parts, and let none of the more spectacular parts of the body feel superior to the less impressive parts. God is the one who has designed and arranged the organs in the body, each one of them as he chose (v.18). Each part needs every other part. There is no competition between them, rather a rich supplementation of what is lacking in one part alone. What if the body were all nose, then where would be its ability to remove waste products?
Paul is talking about the different gifts the Lord gives to members of the church and he concludes with another list, this time of persons rather than gifts (as in verses eight through ten). This time he adds the gifts of apostle, and administrator and those who help others. So neither list is a rigid, invariable inventory which states, “This is a total list of the gifts.” They are some of the gifts present in every gospel congregation, but in both lists in this chapter notice that speaking in various kinds of tongues and interpreting those tongues comes at the very bottom. Immediately after mentioning them Paul goes on to say, “Eagerly desire the greater gifts” (v.31). So the analogy of the body’s parts not being all equally great comes to mind.
- CLOSING APPLICATION.
I want to make three closing remarks about this subject of spirituality.
i] It is important to remember the distinction between the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is the grace that the Holy Spirit creates in every single Christian life. It is the divinely begotten virtue that is making us like Christ and like one another. The preeminent fruit of the Spirit is love, and Paul expounds this theme in detail in the next chapter, thus reflecting exactly what his Lord also taught. If someone who professes to be a believer is characterized by a lack of love then one can have no confidence that the Spirit of God indwells him. In fact the apostle John startles us, underlining how Spirit-created Christian love is by saying, “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (I Jn. 4:7). You see this love in a man and then you can guarantee that he has been born of God. So the fruit of the Spirit is what makes us like Christ and like one another.
The gifts of the Spirit are the very reverse. Although their origin is also in the same third person of the Godhead his gifts makes us different from one another. The analogy is the body, which has many organs, all very different from one another. “God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body” (I Cor. 12:18-20). So Paul lists many spiritual gifts asking the same question about them all, “Are all apostles? [the answer is ‘no’] Are all prophets? [again the answer is ‘no’, and so on] Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?” (I Cor. 12:29&30). The answer to every question is ‘no, no, no.’ These gifts are what distinguish Christians from one another, and so it is a major mistake to take one of the Spirit’s gifts and make that one gift the defining evidence for the presence of the Spirit in someone’s life, because these are gifts which some Christians are given by God while other Christians are refused them by God. They are given quite different gifts by the same Spirit. But every Christian is given the Spirit’s fruit, especially love.
ii] Equally important is this, that the gifts of the Spirit are the gifts of Almighty God, the Creator, the sustainer of the cosmos, the one who is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. The Spirit is God. This is strikingly seen in the Trinitarian structure of verses four to six in chapter twelve of the first letter to the Corinthians. The order of the persons of the Godhead is not as it is in the baptismal formula, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and not as in the Corinthian grace, “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” and after that, the Father’s love, and finally the Spirit’s fellowship. Here the Spirit of God comes first, then the Lord Jesus, and last of all the Father; “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men” (vv. 4-6).
So people who claim to have spiritual gifts are saying of their gift, “This is mine because Almighty God, the maker of the Milky Way, has given it to me.” It is a staggering claim, and if it is true then I have to receive it and learn. I am simply pleading for some thought and weight to be given to that claim. I am asking you to consider what are the marks of the indwelling of God in the Christian according to the New Testament. Think on such things. I too make a very audacious claim that this Almighty God has actually called and gifted me to be a pastor-preacher. That is my claim. It is an absolutely staggering statement, it is breath-taking, and certainly the criteria for its truthfulness must transcend my own personal feelings that it is true. Those feelings may be important for me, but for me alone. We have to go to the Bible, the whole church has to, and ask what are the marks of a man who is called by God into the ministry. What are the life and ethics and the theology of such a man? What are the duties and energies of such a man? This is spelled out in the Bible. We are not in ignorance of the marks of the possession of this gift from God. I am saying that there is no Creator call without the integrity of a Creator’s requirements and that these are revealed in the Creator’s word. Then my own life, as well as the life of every preacher, has to be examined in the light of them. You had better do that constantly. I have the microphone and you don’t, and so you’d better be sure that I am called by God to teach you. You make such a judgment week by week for you keep saying to me, “Come back next week and speak to us from the Bible.” Others have left.
I am also saying that if there are no criteria given to explain what some of these gifts actually are, then how we can affirm that such a person has them, and what their stewardship requires? We have to be silent or very modest about our claims to have such unspecified gifts or that other men have them. I am thinking of such gifts as the message of wisdom, the message of knowledge, the gift of faith, those able to help others, gifts of administration, serving, contributing to the needs of others, leadership, showing mercy and so on. What are these as spiritual gifts? When do they become gifts of the Spirit transcending the virtues which all Christians show? Are they the heightening of those virtues temporarily or permanently? We can have our ideas and can make helpful comments about those gifts, but there is little of a specific nature which would enable a church, say, to set apart a person as one possessing these gifts.
This is certainly the case with claims to possess a gift of a revelation of God. That begins with a fresh word of hope and exhortation, but it always ends in uncertainty. Consider a man called Neil Babcock who spent some years with groups of people who claimed that they were bringing to a congregation words that came directly from the lips of the God of the universe. Increasingly Neil came to experience agony of heart over those messages and the claims made about them. He writes, “‘Thus saith the Lord.’ How I struggled with those words! As Jacob wrestled with the angel in the dark of the night, so I wrestled with those words. As the angel wounded Jacob, so those words wounded me. And as Jacob’s defeat became his victory, I thank God those words, so right and unfathomable in their significance, defeated me. The moment of truth came when I heard a prophecy spoken at a church I was visiting. I was sitting in the church trying to worship God while dreading the approach of that obligatory moment of silence which signalled that a prophecy was about to be spoken. The silence came, and soon it was broken by a bold and commanding ‘Thus saith the Lord!’ Those words triggered an immediate reaction. Conviction, like water rising against a dam, began to fill my soul. ‘Listen my people . . .’ Until finally, the dam burst: ‘This is not my God,’ I cried within my heart. ‘This is not my Lord!’” (Neil Babcock, My Search of Charismatic Reality, London, The Wakeman Trust, 1992, pp. 58&59).
iii] It is important to acknowledge that in this list of gifts some of them had ceased before the end of the first century. The first gift (mentioned in verse twenty-nine) is the gift of apostle. Could anybody else - apart from the twelve who were called by Christ and set apart by the church - become an apostle? Could you aspire to be one? Could you volunteer? Could you put your name forward for the church to vote on you becoming an apostle? Could a congregation claim that their minister had become so great that he was now a super-minister, a veritable apostle? How did the church go about finding a replacement for Judas? Read the words of Peter; “it is necessary to chose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become with us a witness of his resurrection” (Acts 1:21&22). What were the criteria for the apostleship? To have been with Christ during his ministry, and to have been a witness of his resurrection, so that you could say when you saw him in the Upper Room on the third day after the crucifixion, “This man is the very same Jesus who called Levi from the tax-office and Peter from fishing whom I saw raised from the dead. He met with me and the others for those forty days.” So it is impossible for there to be an apostolic succession, because the Lord Jesus is now in heaven. No one has seen him bodily for 1900 years.
You ask, “But what of the apostle Paul? He didn’t see the risen Jesus Christ did he?” Yes, he did. That is his great claim: “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (I Cor. 9:1). It was not a vision that Paul saw on the road to Damascus, it was the real, living, glorified Jesus who stepped through the veil and met with Paul there. So the spiritual gift of apostles is no more. They ceased because their work was a foundation-laying work. The gospel church has always been a cessationist church in its view of the gift of the apostles and prophets. There was this office given at one time in the history of redemption and it was not intended to be one of a constant flowing of gifts of the Spirit into the life of the church ever after - like pastors, preachers, elders and deacons. The apostleship was a one-off foundational gift. Today the miraculous God-breathed Bible that the apostles completed is the permanent spiritual gift of God to every gospel church.
I was reading Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s book called Authority (Banner of Truth). How he insists on the finality and perfection of the apostleship. He says, “It is the only authority; it is the final authority. There can be no addition to it. It cannot be added to because there cannot be any successors to the apostles. By definition they cannot have successors. We assert this as against Roman Catholicism and Anglo-Catholicism, and all who teach the spurious doctrine of ‘apostolic succession’. If an apostle is a man who must have seen the risen Lord and who is therefore able to witness to the fact of the resurrection, there cannot be successors. Those originally chosen have had no successors. There have been no others who have been especially called and endowed and inspired to speak and to teach authoritatively by the risen Lord himself directly. The thing is impossible. There is to be no fresh revelation. There is no need of any. It was given and given finally to the apostles (see Jude 3).
“The church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. We must therefore reject every supposed new revelation, every addition to doctrine. We must assert that all teaching and all truth and all doctrine must be tested in the light of the Scriptures. Here is God's revelation of himself, given in parts and portions in the Old Testament with an increasing clarity and with a culminating finality, coming eventually ‘in the fulness of times’ to the perfect, absolute, final revelation in God the Son. He in turn enlightens and reveals his will and teaching to those apostles, endows them with a unique authority, fills them with the needed ability and power, and gives them the teaching that is essential to the well-being of the church and God’s people. We can build only upon this one, unique authority” (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Authority, Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, pp 59&61). So some gifts were for the foundation for two thousands years of the spread of the church, and especially so was the testimony of the divinely appointed apostles and also the prophets with whom they were identified. These were the immediate spokesmen-channels of the God of truth to his people for the foundation of every gospel congregation, while many of the other gifts were for the superstructure, and we must covet those best gifts today. So there are my three concluding points, that there’s a difference between the Spirit’s gifts and the Spirit’s fruit, that the Holy Spirit is true Almighty God and should be reverenced as such. God should not be used to endorse our own decisions and opinions. Some gifts like apostles and prophets were foundational gifts and not superstructural gifts.
31st August 2008 GEOFF THOMAS