SUNDAY MORNING No. 27.
The Gifts Of The Spirit
Apostolic circumstances no parallel in modern experience. - Gifts of the
Spirit. - Sectaries in the first ecclesias. - Division and the gifts of the
Spirit. - Paul written to. - 1 Cor. answers to questions. - Calling Jesus
accursed. - How a man having the Spirit could call him accursed. - Inspiration
not common to men. - No man calling Jesus Lord but by the Spirit. - Christ's
Messiahship not to be known apart from the Spirit. - The apostolic testimony,
the testimony of the Spirit. - This fact wrenched from its meaning in modern
times. - Philosophy and theology both dangerous. - The unity of the Spirit
though diversity of operation. - The same fact in Nature. - The co-relation of
force. - The body of Christ a future development, though now germinally
existent. - Mere fragments at present. - Unsightly in most cases. - Perfection
of symmetry and sympathy in the future.
1 CORINTHIANS 12. - There are several things in this chapter interesting and
important to be understood, but not apparent on the surface. To discern them, it
is necessary to have distinctly in view the people to whom the epistle was
written, and the time and circumstances under which it was addressed to them. If
we were to read it from a modern point of view -- that is, as if Paul were
discussing principles applicable to modern circumstances, we should make many
mistakes. Paul is discoursing on a situation of things existing in his own day,
and having no parallel in our experience. The situation is very simply
described. A number of people in Corinth, brought up in a mixed state of
philosophy and idolatry, had believed the testimony of Paul on the occasion of
his visit to the city, concerning the resurrection of Christ, and the benefits
offered to those who should believe and obey the risen Master. Their belief was
based upon the signs and wonders by which Paul's word was accompanied. God gave
testimony to the word of His grace in signs and wonders and gifts of the Holy
Spirit (Heb. 2:4), so that their faith "stood not in the wisdom of men, but in
the power of God" (1 Cor. 2:5). After they believed, the Holy Spirit was given
to them also, by the laying on of the apostles' hands, so that they also were
able to speak with tongues, work miracles, prophesy, speak the words of wisdom
and knowledge, etc. Paul stayed with them a good while, even "a year and six
months" (Acts 18:11), for Christ had told him that he had much people in the
city (verse 10). After Paul left them, various questions began to arise among
them as to duty in this and that, in the new position in which the truth had
placed them. Some held one opinion and some another upon the various matters
that arose. There were also sectaries among them -- men who did not rise to the
breadth and greatness of the unity that was in Christ, but conceived petty
partialities for certain leaders and teachers. Some said, "I am of Paul," as
against others who boasted to the disparagement of Paul, that they were of
Peter; while others again made Apollos the watchword, and others, Christ. The
existence of such a state of division in a community blessed with the gifts of
the Spirit will appear inexplicable to those who have not realized that those
gifts did not override the judgment and temperamental peculiarities of the
possessors; but were restricted to the particular function appertaining to them.
A speaker of tongues was the same individual in the manifestation of character
as if he had not received a supernatural knowledge of the languages. A worker of
miracles was not made infallible by the impartation of the power to heal. Those
having the gift of knowledge and wisdom would be reliable guides; but they do
not appear to have been deferred to, to their full extent. And this would be
accounted for by the probable argument that one man with a gift of the Spirit
was as good as another with a different gift. Thus, the man having the power to
interpret tongues, if he differed in judgment from the brother who had the word
of wisdom, might feel justified in maintaining his own opinion on the ground
that he also having the Spirit, had as much right to form a judgment of the
matter as another having the same Spirit in another form. In this disordered
state, they appear to have written to Paul to give his mind on the various
questions raised. This fact comes out in the 1st verse of the 7th chapter: "Now
concerning the THINGS whereof ye wrote unto me." The last ten chapters,
including the one that has been read, follow this sentence. It is, therefore,
probable that they deal with questions that had been asked by the Corinthians in
their letter. Indeed, the style is decidedly indicative of this fact. Take the
first verse of the chapter read for instance: "Now concerning spiritual gifts";
this is not the way a man writes who is dealing spontaneously with the subject.
It is just the style of a man who is answering questions that have been
submitted to him; who having done with one, is proceeding to another. It is,
therefore, probable that Paul's judgment had been asked on the matters discussed
in the chapter. This supposition greatly aids the comprehension of it.
"Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye
were led" (1 Cor. 12:2). This allusion to their antecedents prepares the way for
the attitude he is about to take as their teacher, and also lays a basis for the
argument he is about to advance. As much as to say, "Ye know that apart from
what I brought to you, ye were idolaters, without hope, without inheritance in
Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise. The gifts that ye have, were
acquired by you in connection with the Gospel. Therefore, the Gospel is the
standard by which the questions in agitation must be decided. 'Wherefore, I give
you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus
accursed (verse 3).
Now, how came Paul to have to make this apparently superfluous declaration?
Obviously, because there were some among the Corinthians calling Jesus accursed,
who professed to speak by the Spirit. How could such a thing be? This is only to
be understood in view of the surroundings and extraction of the Corinthians. The
Grecians have been termed the philosophers of the world. The Corinthians lived
in one of the principal cities of the Greeks, and at one of the principal seats
of philosophy. It was very natural, therefore, that philosophy should crop up in
their midst as a perverter of the phenomena connected with the Spirit. Indeed,
in the case of another Greek ecclesia -- that at Colosse, he expressly says,
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit." Now upon
what principle of philosophy could any man take the attitude of a detractor of
Jesus, and yet claim to be speaking by the Spirit ? I could understand such a
case to arise in this way. A worldly thinker, brought in by the preaching of
Paul and the novelty of the gifts, remains submissive to apostolic principles
for a while, but bringing his secular philosophy to bear, aided by intercourse
with the philosophic alien, gradually comes to regard the Gospel movement as but
a peculiar form of universal truth. Such a man would come to esteem highly the
writers and thinkers and orators of Greece, and to contend that although there
was doubtless good in the apostolic system, and a greater measure of good than
in Paganism, that yet as a whole it was narrow and unphilosophical; that Jesus,
dying by crucifixion, was accursed by the very system which he said he came to
fulfil; that it was unreasonable to suppose that God intended an accursed man to
hold the position of supremacy taught by the apostles, especially to the
exclusion of "the wise and good" men of philosophic fame. The inspired teachers
in the ecclesia would, of course, oppose such a doctrine; and declining to argue
it philosophically, might assert the authority of the Spirit in them as
sufficient to close the mouth of the objector. In answer to which the objector
might say, "I also have the Spirit: I received it equally with you; in fact all
men have the Spirit -- the poets and philosophers of Athens, as well as the
apostles, and therefore we have as much right to maintain our convictions as
you." If the man or men were clever and loquacious, their words would stagger
the faith of some, and be difficult of confutation. Accordingly Paul was written
to: "Can a man have the Spirit who calls Jesus accursed?" Paul's answer is "No!"
and on the general question of all men being inspired, he says "The things of
God KNOWETH NO MAN, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit
of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that
are freely given to us of God" (1 Cor. 2:11, 12).
The next statement of Paul I understand also to apply to the cavils of the same
objector: "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Spirit." The
necessity for making that statement might arise in this way. In dealing with the
man calling Jesus accursed while claiming to speak by the Spirit, the spiritual
men of the ecclesia might point out to him that but for the Spirit coming into
their midst by Paul, they never would have known about Christ at all. In answer
to which, the caviller might contend that the knowledge of Christ was as much a
thing of natural cognition as any other matter of history. He would say that
although they knew it first by Paul, that was a mere accident; Paul happened to
be first on the ground: but that if he hadn't come, they would have heard of so
stirring an historical incident in some other way. This would give rise to the
point met by Paul's declaration, "Can a man know that Jesus is the Lord without
the instrumentality of the Spirit?" The truthfulness of Paul's answer is
apparent in many ways. To see or hear of the power of Christ was not to be made
to know that he was the Messiah, the Lord. The Pharisees saw him, but did not
believe. His appearance conveyed no intimation of the fact. As the prophet had
predicted, "He had no form nor comeliness; and when they saw him, there was
nothing in him that they should desire him." His Messiahship requires to be
testified by the Spirit and confirmed by the Spirit. It was not to be known
apart from this. Hence when Peter confessed that he was the Christ, Jesus said,
"Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father who is in
heaven." How? Not by the Spirit filling Peter and mechanically convincing him as
it were (for the "Holy Spirit was not yet given" in that sense -- John 7:39);
but by the testimony the Father gave to Jesus on two notable occasions in the
presence of Peter, and on one of them before a multitude. At his baptism and
transfiguration, "A voice came from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son; hear
ye him." No man could know apart from the Spirit that Jesus was the Lord. When
men heard the apostles afterwards, as the Corinthians heard Paul, they heard the
Spirit, for the Spirit was in them, as Jesus had promised. The co-operating
works of the Spirit in healing, raising the dead, speaking with tongues, were
evidences of the testimony being the Spirit's testimony; but apart from that
testimony, no man would say that Jesus is the Lord. As a matter of human
knowledge, it was unattainable; and therefore the philosophic caviller was
sporting himself with his own deceivings in contending as many do in our own
day, with Renan at their head, that the Lord Jesus was a mere phenomenal
manifestation of moral power, to be recognized and understood on natural
principles.
But Paul's words in our day are greatly wrested from their meaning. They are
made to teach that no man can say that Jesus is Lord unless he is personally and
supernaturally illuminated by the Holy Spirit. This is a self-evident absurdity.
We all here present confess that Jesus is the Lord; and we do it heartily, with
joyful and grateful emphasis, yet we deny that we are subjectively illuminated
in the way contended for in orthodox circles. We are only illuminated in this
way, that the Spirit uttering its voice in the earth 1,800 years ago, and
causing its words to be recorded, has furnished us with evidence that convinces
our understandings that Jesus is the Lord: and apart from the means it
instituted to this end, we never would have known the fact, and therefore could
never have stated it. In this sense, still, no man can say that Jesus is the
Lord but by the Holy Spirit, but this is a very different sense from the
orthodox sense which requires that God shall inspire us before we can know His
truth, although He has sent us inspired preachers for the very purpose of
causing us to know that faith might come by hearing their word. Furthermore, the
people who claim to be thus inspired, it is easy to show, do not confess the
truth revealed by the Spirit concerning the Lordship of Jesus in many important
elements. We must take care, while steering clear of the atheistical philosophy
of ancient and modern times, not to run into mistakes in the opposite direction,
which are only a little less ruinous.
Paul's remarks on the unity in diversity of the gifts of the Spirit may also be
understood as a reply to the same class of objectors, while furnishing
information useful to those not in that position. When the official brethren of
the ecclesia claimed, in the controversies that arose, to speak with authority
in the name of the Spirit amongst them, the caviller of the class in question,
of whom so many specimens are to be found in modern times, might well be
supposed to say, "You talk of the Spirit; and you point to the various things
that are done, but we cannot see in them an evidence of the Spirit. They are
more like the feats of conjurers. If it were one Spirit, would it not show
itself in the same way in every person having it?" "Like causes produce like
effects," they might say, with the dogmatic sapience of a philosophy which has
proved itself so many times in opposition to the truth.
"How can we answer this?" the Corinthian believers may well be imagined to ask
Paul. The answer is: "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." And
there is more philosophy in Paul's answer than the ancient philosophers knew.
The law is found to operate even in the natural body, which he afterwards makes
use of as an illustration. Hearing is different from smelling; and tasting from
seeing; and feeling different from both. Yet if you examine the nerve substance
employed in the generation of these different sensations, you find it is exactly
the same in all cases. Put it under a microscope, or test it with chemics, and
you can discern no difference in the constitution of the nerve-fibre of the ear,
eye, nose, tongue, or skin. And the vital energy developed from the blood by the
secerning vessels, and supplied to these various functions, is exactly the same
-- "different manifestations, but the same spirit." Go wider still. Range the
broad domain of Nature, examine all phenomena, and you get at last to what is
now termed scientifically the "co-relation of forces"; that is, you come to see
that the various powers denominated heat, light, strength, cohesion,
gravitation, are but the manifestation of a common primal, simple, indefinable
force: "different manifestations, but the same spirit." Why is the same force
one thing in one relation and another in another? There is no more philosophical
answer than the one given by Paul: "All these worketh that one and the selfsame
Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." The will of the Spirit --
the appointment of the Creator -- is the ultimate explanation of all things. The
Corinthian philosophers were, therefore, not so wise as they imagined when they
pointed to the diversity of the gifts as a disproof of the apostolic theory of
the Spirit. In fact, it was a case of "professing themselves to be wise, they
became fools."
There is another feature of the chapter that had time permitted it would have
been profitable to have dwelt upon: and that is where Paul speaks of the unity
and comeliness of the body of Christ, I would only take time to say that it is a
great mistake to look for the realization of what Paul says, in our present
position. The perfect, complete, glorious body of Christ will not be seen till
put together in all its parts at his coming, when he will present it to himself
"a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing." It is now but
being developed. The merest fragment exists in our day. To look on that fragment
as the body of Christ would be a mistake calculated to inspire disgust and
destroy heart in the whole matter. It is as when a manufacturer is getting up a
splendid article to send to an international exhibition. It is got up in pieces;
and an unskilled eye, seeing one of those pieces in the grimy workshop,
unfinished and among dirt and litter, would form a very unfavourable idea of it.
If he were ignorant of the plan and the pieces, he would be disgusted to be told
that that unsightly piece of metal was to dazzle the eyes of courtiers at the
world's fair. At present we are in the polishing shop; and we are but a very
minute part of the mechanism -- as it were a bolt or pin. The eye of
intelligence looks at the situation and is not disappointed because things are
at present so inartistic, so unlovely, so un-Christlike, in many ways.
The world looks not with the eye of intelligence, but looks at Christ's work in
the workshop stage and jeers. Well, we can afford to bear this. We know that a
glorious work is being done, and that all who profess the truth are not
Christlike; that there is, nevertheless, being developed by the truth a people,
here and there, who will form constituents of that great body Christ, in which
there will be all symmetry and sympathy. We look forward, with the eye of faith,
to the complete body -- the principal members of which are now in the dust.
Meanwhile, as regard the duties of our present position, we accept the professed
friends of Christ, as the body of Christ in our day, towards which we are to be
faithful and kind -- "good unto all men," but specially those who are of the
household of faith. We know not who are Christ's. We must leave that to the
judge of all the earth, who will do right. We must, in the dullness and
bitterness of the time, do our duty, even unto kindness to the unthankful and
the evil, in the full prospect of that day when, if we thus sow to the Spirit,
we shall reap life and everlasting joy.