1 Corinthians Chapter 12

1 Corinthians Chapter 12

SPIRITUAL GIFTS :  The discussion about spiritual gifts involves the theme of unity and edification of the Church.  The Corinthians may have sought information along these lines:

*  How to distinguish between spiritual utterances?

*  The relative value of prophecy and tongues?

*  What course must be followed when more than one wants to speak at the same time?

The apostle deals with the matter of prophecy and tongues in a threefold way:

a. The doctrine of the Body of Christ.  This is the theme of chapter 12.  The body is one, but consists of many members and all must function for the good of the whole body.  It was important they grasp the meaning of their corporate life in Christ.  Their zeal for tongues menaced the unity of the Church.  It is to wrongly use the gifts of the Spirit to use them to promote one's own distinction but they are to profit the whole Church.  Clearly our desire for spiritual gifts and our use of them must be governed by the truth of the body of Christ.

           

b. The more excellent way of love.  The theme of chapter 13.  Love supersedes all other gifts.  Other gifts have no true value except they promote the spirit of love.  For where love is absent the greatest of gifts is worthless.  Love alone can give significance to spiritual gifts.  Therefore only such gifts that enable us to help others are of abiding value.  Love is the deliberate and purposeful caring for others.  When gifts serve the cause of love they edify the community, but they menace the unity of the Church when used to acquire personal superiority and distinction.  The mistaken emphasis the Corinthians assigned to tongues arose from their failure to appreciate their corporate unity and the importance of building up that unity in love.

           

c. The edification of the Church.  The theme of chapter 14. All Church activities must be directed to its edification.  The building up of the Church is the one important thing.  Any spiritual activity that merely promotes self-distinction or advances the individual's preeminence without edifying the Church is an activity of little account.  The great guiding principle is that all things be done to edify, that is, the building up of the corporate life of the Church.

           

The three chapters form one complete argument.  The body of Christ, the pathway of Christian love and the Supreme importance of edification are bound together.  The body is a community of members, all of whom are necessary to its life.  In the human body, the bloodstream, the red river of life, is a vital medium for the building up of many members.  But the believers, where love is the river of life, is that by which the community of members are built together.

           

Paul discerned the unhappy state of things at Corinth.  There was a lack of mutual love, rather dissension and confusion prevailed instead of edification at their Church meetings.  Paul had a great grasp of the essential principles and discerned that the Corinthians did not fully understand the great truth of the body of Christ, the supremacy and abiding worth of love, and the master requirement that all things be done with the view of edifying the Church. Had they done so, it would have provided them with a yardstick to measure the spiritual gifts which are most desirable.

           

It is in the context of these three truths we must take account of spiritual gifts.  The man who appreciates these three principles of truth, will hardly become infatuated with tongues.  The three chapters constitute Paul's argument against their use of tongues and clearly show that gifts are not for one's own personal distinction, but for the edification of the Church.  The chapters are of abiding value in that they prove a healthy and sound basis for all church activities.

           

Tongues dropped out of use in the early history of the church.  They may have done so because men read these great chapters of Paul, and saw more clearly the principles that should govern the activities and ministries in the Church.  Chapter 12 would suggest that the Corinthians esteemed the gift of tongues as in some special way the distinctive gift of the Spirit.  Paul insists that the same Spirit bestows the various gifts and Paul lists tongues and their interpretation last. The Corinthians may have even argued that tongues are a sign of the baptism of the Spirit, but Paul asserts that all have been baptized in one Spirit.

12:1-3.  The supreme and sure test for the discerning of alleged spiritual utterances. 

When the Corinthians were still Gentiles or pagans they had experienced forms of ecstasy and enthusiasm, being carried away to dumb idols, which were unable to reveal any truth or worth.  Ecstasy was a feature of some forms of Greek religion.  One of the best known cults was the worship of Dionysius.  It took the form of a frenzy or madness which fell upon the worshippers, especially the women.  They became possessed by the god (enthusiasmos), partaking of his divinity and immorality.  Guthrie describes it, as on the lowest level an insane frenzy and on the highest level a wild ecstasy.

           

The apostle declares that submission and loyalty to Jesus as Lord is the distinctive character of those who speak by the Holy Spirit.  This confession of Jesus as Lord - this simple stand, briefest creed - is no "lip-loyalty" but proceeds from the Spirit of God, acting upon the heart and mind.  Such confession cannot be prompted by any other influence than the Holy Spirit.

           

12:4-11.  The unity of the Spirit is manifested in a diversity of gifts.  They constitute a diversity that arises from the unity, and a unity that is expressed in diversity.  We can illustrate verses 4-6 in this manner:   Two men possess differing gifts, one the word of wisdom and the other the word of knowledge, a diversity of gifts but the same Spirit distributing them.  They use different gifts in Christian service, giving service to the Lord.  But, since they have differing gifts, they use them in differing branches of Christian service.  There is a division of service, but the same Lord.  The blessing of God falls upon their differing activities, and there is a variety of effective results, though it is the same God who worketh all in all, and apart from whose working there can be no results.  The Trinitarian structure of these verses suggest that the Holy Trinity is concerned with unity, and the diversity of activity in the Church.

           

Every man has received some manifestation of the Spirit for some useful purpose, to the advantage of the whole community.  Spiritual gifts are easily misused if we do not grasp the unity of the Church and fail to recognize that the allotment of spiritual gifts is that this unity be promoted in healthy activity.

           

The list of gifts in verses 8-10 may not be complete, but typical.  It may represent the gifts manifested at Corinth. It is surprising that tongues are not mentioned in Romans 12.  They surely would have been if they were as important as some Corinthians imagined.  It is unlikely that tongues made an appeal to the Romans. The Corinthians had been richly endowed by the Holy Spirit in spiritual gifts, but were surprisingly lacking in the fruit of the Spirit.

           

The list of gifts is interesting.  A spiritual gift is a latent human faculty or ability that has become a means of the Holy Spirit's activity in the Church.  The human faculty is heightened or intensified under the influence of the Spirit.  The gift of tongues required a state of ecstasy, in which the person develops beyond himself and achieves remarkable feats.

           

The word of wisdom and the word of knowledge point to the capacity to communicate wisdom and knowledge.  It is not easy to see the difference Paul intended, wisdom may mean the knowledge of God, and knowledge may mean the ability to determine God's will in a given situation.  The difference is not certain.  Nil's Johannson defines knowledge as the spiritual ability to judge what was the will of God; what was permitted and what was not permitted.

           

The gift of faith is not the personal trust in Christ that belongs to all Christians (4:7), but it is a more marked or outstanding faith.  Paul writes of the faith that does extraordinary things.

           

The plural `gifts' in connection to healings may point to the diversities of diseases healed.  We know very little about these gifts, but there is no grounds for identifying them with the miraculous wrought by some of the apostles, and apostolic-like men as recorded in Acts.  The gifts of healing in verse 9 is presumably possessed by an ordinary member in the Church.  In view of our very limited knowledge of its function, we must be on our guard as to the modern faith-healer.  Our knowledge of the working of miracles is also limited.  It may refer to the overthrowing of Satanic powers by the casting out of demons from those possessed.

           

The gift of prophecy was that of prediction and the exposition of the Christian hope may have occupied a large place in the ministry of New Testament prophets.  The warning of immanent trial, the counseling of the Church in the matter of new outreaches of evangelism and the appointment of men to work, may have also come within the range of the prophetic ministry.  However the greater part of the ministry must have been the exposition of Divine truth and the encouragement of the believers.

           

The prophet spoke by revelation.  In that revelation there is a Divine and a human side.  We have no psychological description of prophecy where the Divine activity ends and the human response begins.  There is a Divine unfolding and a human insight.  Both are necessary and we cannot define their limits.  Probably, New Testament Christians made no such sharp distinction; for them revelation included both.  The Spirit of God lays hold of latent human faculties and makes them the vehicle for revealing the will of God.  Therefore revelation included not only the more special communication from God but every luminous opening up of truth to the mind.  This wider category of revelation we might have named "Insight," but it is wrong to attribute it to human intelligence alone.  It has the character of revelation, for there is a Divine unveiling as well as human insight.  The revelation was not unrelated to previous preparation of heart and mind.  It is reasonable to presume that much prayer and reflection preceded the revelation.

           

Prophecy had frequently an extemporaneous character, but this may not have always been so.  Normally it did not come up out of a vacuum, but was closely related to previous knowledge and experience.  There was always this element of continuity in prophecy, which is concerned with the development of things already known and accepted. Rom.12:6.  This essential continuity makes it possible to test the revelation by truth that is already known.  The revelation that the prophet speaks, must be discerned by the rest. 14:29.    This implies that the Church possesses a recognized standard of the truth by which inspirational messages may be discerned.  See 1st.Jn.4:1-3.

           

The element of ecstasy in prophecy has been much discussed with certain results.  Certainly not the whole range of the prophetic ministry took the form of ecstasy.  The prophetic ministry that Paul here writes about may have been very much like an inspirational sermon.  Paul ranks the gift of prophecy very high.  It may therefore seem surprising that this gift was not mentioned in the Church.  Various factors may have been the development of a recognized body of apostolic writings.  As this concept of a New Testament Canon took shape in the Church, it would be felt that inspired utterances constituted a problem rather than a help to the unity of the faith and the Church.  It is not that the usual prophetic ministry in the Church ever occupied the same authority that the New Testament writings came to have in the Church.  Though it is true that the prophetic ministry contributed to the understanding of the faith that is preserved in the N.T.

           

In the pastoral epistles can be discerned the development of a ministry.  There the minister of the Word is a man of authority, and much importance is placed in character, experience and personal qualifications.  A new emphasis is placed on discipline and training.  The apostolic teaching and the Scriptures constituted the equipment of the Christian minister.  He is a man bred in the Word, and the important thing for him to realise is that of the complete sufficiency  of the Holy Scriptures.

           

The discerning of spirits is another charisma listed in chapter 12.  This may have been closely associated with prophecy.  That prophetic messages were tested and discerned by the Church, is sufficient to show that such prophetic utterance never occupied the place of the New Testament.

           

14:29.  The spirits are discerned by the form of teaching they bring.  Tongues or glossolalia was not a form of preaching, but of praise.  The account of Acts 2 indicates that at Pentecost the tongues were foreign languages.  This is surprising, since Aramaic and Greek covered Jews from such nations.  It is probable that like the gift of prophecy, it took various forms.  Its use in 1st.Corinthians 14 suggest a form of ecstatic speech, for in 14:11 Paul alludes to a foreign language, and finds an analogy presupposes they are not identical.  Therefore, except for Acts 2, we suggest that glossolalia denotes tongues of ecstasy.  See N.E.B.

           

Tongues fell out of use in the early history of the Church.  Probably, these three chapters by Paul contributed to their decline.  When men read these chapters, they gained a better understanding of what edified the Church.  Tongues were discarded for they found a better way.  Glossolalia had divisive and fissiparous tendencies and its defects would become more conspicuous as men were increasingly concerned with the great problem of unity and catholicity of the Church.

           

It is a mistake to think a revival of tongues would help the Church.  But what is needed is a revival of the great principle of these chapters - that our corporate life in Christ be built up in love.  This is the chief thing.  In these chapters Paul does not count tongues as an aid, but as an obstacle to the building up of the Church in mutual love. The Corinthian infatuation for tongues menaced the unity and corporate life of the Church.  In these chapters Paul develops the idea of the unity and corporate life of the Church and this constitutes his reply to the enthusiast for glossolalia.  The account in these chapters suggests that tongues did not make them:-

*  The better Christians - more spiritual.

*  Better witnesses - more successful at winning men for Christ.

*  Better church members - building the unity of love.

However, though tongues at Corinth were beset by confusion, disorder and unseemliness, Paul continues to regard them as the gift of the Spirit.

           

Finally, there are the interpretation of tongues. The interpreter of tongues must have sympathy and insight.  The glossolalia conveys no intelligible communication, but the interpreter discerns and feels what the speaker in a tongue feel.  Since in glossolalia the understanding is laid aside and the ecstatic expresses his emotions in unintelligible speech, the task of the interpreter is to feel what the ecstatic is expressing, and give it an intelligible form so that the congregation is edified.

           

The paragraph concludes in emphasizing the personality and sovereignty of the Holy Spirit, who allots to each man according to His own sovereign will. 

Gives, v.7-8;  worketh, divideth, v.11.  The paragraph shows a rich and varied endowment of gifts, ministries - "diversity, each man, to one, to the other, dividing to each man."  The unity and diversity of the Church is emphasized.  This unity is expressed in diversity, and the diversity is integral to the richness of the unity.

           

The Corinthians misunderstood the meaning of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church.  They were zealous for spiritual gifts and proud of their wealth of such gifts, but did not appreciate that the aim of spiritual gifts is to express the unity of the Body of Christ, formed by the indwelling Holy Spirit. 

           

12:12-13.  The One Body.  The unity which the Spirit forms is like that of a body.  Paul uses the illustration of the human body, which is a unity or body comprising many members, who though they are many, are one body.  The many members have the unity of one single living organism.  Paul applies this principle in the remarkable statement, "so also is Christ."  This describes the unity which has been bestowed on the Church.  The words, "so also is Christ" describe the unity that exists between Christ and His members.  It is Christ who gives unity to the whole body, uniting and animating it by His Spirit.  We share in its unity through our relationship to Christ.

           

The illustration from the human body suggests that the unity of the Church is deeper than we can see.  Our members have not been thrown together in a skin sack, but there is a unity and co-ordination that arises from unseen forces.  So also the unity in Christ has hidden roots and unseen spiritual forces that unite.  He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit, 6:17.

           

One Spirit.  The unity of Christians is further developed in the words, "in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body."  The unity of the Spirit guarantees the unity of the body.  The language of 12:13 is emphatic that all in one Spirit were baptized into one body.  Note the word, "all" occurs twice in this verse.  That all share in this baptism is central to the thought of the passage.  The Corinthian Church was carnal and immature, but all were brought into one body by baptism, in the one Spirit, irrespective of racial or social distinctions. It was not the attainment of a privileged few, but a fact true of all believers, even such as were sucklings and nurselings in the faith of Christ.  Paul's emphatic language may have been directed against those who thought glossolalia was a sign of the baptism of the Spirit.

           

Baptized, is a passive aorist verb, and points to a definite historical event.  Does it point to Pentecost or baptism at conversion?  Darby was likely right in holding to the event of Pentecost, Acts 1:5.   Dr. Wolston used the illustration of a stone having been thrown into the centre of a pond of water and from the centre proceeding the widening circles of water until the pond is covered.  However the event of Pentecost becomes true of everyone at their conversion to Christ. 

           

It seems right then to see also a reference to water baptism.  The event of Pentecost was extended by repentance and baptism.  See Acts 2:38.  In New Testament practice all believers were baptized at conversion.  It was a part of their conversion and therefore, for all practical purposes, baptism was the beginning of their Christian life.  By pin-pointing a thing to baptism it is placed at the very beginning of the Christian life and as true of all believers.

           

Three mistakes to avoid :-

*    That baptism without personal faith will make us a member of Christ.

*  That believers, who are not baptized (such as Salvation Army Christians) are not members of Christ.  This would be a denial of the cardinal truth of faith in Christ.  In a day when Divine order has become confused it is essential to keep our hands on the central truths.  In New Testament evangelism converts were baptized on believing and then instructed.  It was in later times that catechism preceded baptism.  The gloss of Acts 8:37 reflects later practice.

*    A third error is that of MacGroisism, with his two baptisms of the Spirit.

           

The `one body ' of 12:13 is not the local church as distinguished from the Church universal.  The body of Christ is one, whether we think of it locally or as in every place.  The local church at Corinth was not distinguished from the Church catholic, but rather it received its character as a church because it was grounded and inseparably involved in the Church universal.  The reference to baptism puts this beyond doubt.

           

12:14-26. Unity and Diversity illustrated from the human body.  The differing functions of the many members of the body contributed to the unity, harmony and welfare of the body.  Therefore verse 14 declares an important principle which is amplified in the following verses.  The different members have different functions, but they all equally belong to the body. That a member has a particular function or lacks some special skill does not make it any less a member of the body.  Indeed if all had the same function there would be no body. Which is a community of different members coordinating for the good of the body as a whole.

           

In the Church the Spirit is as much the Source of our diversity as of our unity.  This church shows how unity and diversity can be found together.  The diversity which the Spirit gives is not for division and disunity, but promotes a unity that is vital and vigorous.  Paul's idea of the unity of the Church is that which is effected by each member contributing for the good of the Congregation as a whole.  It is because each member's gift is different that vitality and richness is given to the unity of the Body.  Every member is an integral part of the Body and the proper functioning of each member is necessary for the edification of the Church as a community.

           

The central idea of this chapter is that the Body, which is composed of many members, is one.  The human body is one in that several members can have no existence apart from the body and the functioning of a member is always dependent upon and relative to the body itself.  Likewise, there can be no Christianity apart from the Body of Christ.

           

Diversity of function is essential to life. 12:17-20.  There is a multiplicity of functions in a body.  The most primitive organisms must perform a number of functions in order to live.  In a body the number of possible functions is increased for it comprises many members with distinctive activities.  God has made the body that way.  It is not the members themselves that ordained this diversity of function.  If the choice of activity had been left to them, there would be utter confusion.  The body could not continue to exist, if every member chose to do the same thing.  But God has created the human body so that each member has its own proper function in relation to the body.

           

Mutual care. 12:21-26.  No member must despise nor regard their function more important than anothers.  The parts of the body regarded as uncomely are equally necessary.  In clothing such parts, we bestow more abundant honour upon them.  The more feeble members, which are more easily injured, are equally important.  Such need special consideration and upon the seemingly less honourable parts of the body we bestow special honour by clothing them.

           

Paul carefully points out the Divine ordering in all this.  See 12:18, "set"; and 12:24,"tempered".  The members must have the same care for one another.  It is the other members which bestow honour on the parts lacking in comeliness. Paul has not used the word love in this discussion but the idea is not far away, and his illustration prepares the way for the true meaning of mutual love.  The phrase "the same care" affords a good definition of love, which is a mutual concern for the welfare of another.  Such mutual care:-

a.  Excludes monopoly.  No one member is the whole body.

b.  Excludes independence.  The members are necessary to one another.

c.  Promotes common interests. 

In developing the idea of mutual care, Paul expresses the central idea of chapter 13.

           

Divine Order in the Church.  12:27-31.  The Christian must discover God's will as to his place in the Church.  Paul applies to the Corinthians the lessons that the human body has for the Church.  He uses the word `body' as a metaphor, for as a Hebrew he wouldn't be occupied with the nature of a thing as it is, but would view it in relation to God's will and purpose.  The Church is the body of Christ through its relationship to God's purpose.

           

Universal and Local aspects of the Body of Christ.  It is generally recognized that in Ephesians and Colossians that the body of Christ is the whole Church of all believers in Christ.  But that Romans and Corinthians concern the body of Christ, (the local church), in its local aspect.  It is sometimes argued that though all believers belong to the Body of Christ in its complete and catholic sense, that only such as have been baptized into the local church comprise the body of Christ in its local character.  This seems to fall short of the true meaning of the Body of Christ.

           

Paul does not address the Corinthians as a body, but as the Body of Christ that constituted them members of His Body. The local church is not to be thought of as a body or unit distinctive from the Body of Christ which comprises all believers everywhere.   Rather, the one Body of Christ is manifest or present in the local church, and the local church is to be considered as the local manifestation of the one Body of Christ.

           

For Paul, the Church is one and has not formulated any clear distinction between the catholic and local aspects of the Church.  He can therefore write in 12:28, "And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles...."

           

It is clearly emphasized that the Body of Christ is composed of individual members.  See Romans 12:4-5; 1.Cor.6:15 -17; 12:27.  It is then our individual and personal relationship to Christ which constitutes us members of His Body, and being members of His Body we are members one of another.  The word `body' expresses not only our relationship to Christ, but also to one another.  It is because we are members of Christ that we comprise one body, the Body of Christ.

           

Romans 6 instructs us that it is by baptism we become incorporated with Him.  This must not be understood in the context of the local Church as distinct from that of all believers.  Rather the reference to baptism pinpoints it as true of all believers and true of them from their entrance into the Christian life.

           

A Key Verse. 12:27.  This verse has caused much discussion.  The omission of the definite article has been used as grounds for distinguishing and separating the local church from the body of Christ as comprising all believers.  There is no definite article before the word `body'.  Darby and the N.E.B. translate `Christ's Body', but the two emphatic words are "ve" and "body".  To translate "a body of Christ" is unsatisfactory.   The Greek language has no indefinite article and, not only so, this leaves room for the suggestion that the various local churches are each separately a Body of Christ.  The idea of numerous bodies of Christ is monstrous.  It is nowhere taught that the Body of Christ is the aggregate of local churches.  The members of His Body are not local churches, but individual believers and it is their individual relationship to the Head that constitutes their status as members of His Body.

           

Our membership in the local church is not "something other" or something extra to our membership of Christ.  But each local congregation is the Church catholic in miniature, and our place in it cannot be thought of apart from the Body of Christ.  There is, then, one Body of Christ, whether we think of it in its catholicity or its local manifestation and the one Body of Christ is present in every local church.  Therefore, we prefer the translation, "the body of Christ."

           

The omission of the article does not make a word indefinite, as A.T. Robertson insists in his Greek Grammer, but it does serve to bring out its character as comprising a body.  The emphasis falls on "ye" and "body".  So we paraphrase, "Now you, yes you, are in very truth members of a body, the Body of Christ."  This seems to give the true turn of thought here.  The Corinthians had failed to grasp their corporate character.  They had not appreciated their unity in Christ.  Paul had used the illustration of the human body to show a universality that springs from unity and promotes unity as the foundation principle of the body.

           

Now he applies that lesson to them.  He drives home to them their corporate character as the body of Christ.  This corporate character they must express in the life and worship of the local church.  Paul will not allow them to miss the lesson he has drawn from the human body.  They must learn that to belong to Christ is to become members of a body, Christ's Body, and that they must function as members of His Body.  All their church activities must be governed by the principle that they are truly members of a body, the Body of Christ.  Their misuse of gifts arose from failure to appreciate this.

" God hath set." 12:28.  See 12:18,24.  We must not think of one member as more important than another.  All are equally important.  There is mutual care.  But in the matter of gifts, there are differences.  Some are more useful than others.  Paul gives priority to certain ministries.  It is part of the Divine order that some hold greater responsibility in the Church.  But, in the matter of brotherly love and care, all stand in the same need of one another. The apostles occupy the first place in the Church.  Secondly, prophets and thirdly, teachers.  These are numbered, 1,2,3, to emphasize their importance.  But in this list and that of 12:8-10, tongues and their interpretations are last.  This seems intentional.  Paul puts last that to which the Corinthians gave the foremost place, see 12:31.

           

The distribution of gifts is in God's hands and the Church must recognize the Divine order. But God's sovereign action does not exclude human choice and co-operation.  Christians are to desire earnestly the greater gifts for they cannot expect to receive spiritual gifts unless they go in for them.  However, before we can know the right use of the spiritual gifts, we must be shown the more excellent way of love, which seeks only to edify.