Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues; but all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.
\n1 CORINTHIANS 12:1, 8\u201311<\/p>\n
Addendum: The Word of Knowledge
\nIntroduction
\nMr. Donald Gee, a pastor and Bible teacher for many years, traveled extensively and visited Europe, Africa, Australia, the Orient, and North America. He had the privilege of personal contact with many thousands of devoted Christians who have experienced the Pentecostal blessing of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. His knowledge of the Word of God, together with his wide Pentecostal acquaintance, qualifies him to write with authority on this most blessed subject.
\nTo some, this book will open the door into a hitherto unexplored realm. Others who may have known little or much of the operation of the Holy Spirit in personal experience will welcome his effort to throw further light upon the Pentecostal baptism.
\nEven the most casual reader of the New Testament must be struck with the record of supernatural happenings which followed the ministry of the apostles in the Early Church age. There can be no other explanation of those supernatural happenings but that the Holy Spirit, so emphatically promised by the Lord Jesus Christ, had come into the world to confirm the ministry of His followers by divine approval. Mark, the author of the second Gospel, summed up the entire Book of the Acts of the Apostles when he penned these words, \u201cAnd they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following\u201d (Mark 16:20). The same Holy Spirit who was poured out upon the waiting disciples on the Day of Pentecost empowered them to go forth and evangelize, bearing witness to their testimony \u201cboth with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will\u201d (Hebrews 2:4).
\nSome of these supernatural acts of the Holy Spirit were distinctly sovereign and came as a result of a particular need on a particular occasion. Others were repeated and seemed to form a distinct feature of the apostolic equipment for service. This latter form of supernatural working is dealt with in particular in the pages that follow.
\nBible scholars and teachers of all ages have recognized the supernatural workings of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles. Many, however, have taught that these supernatural signs ceased with the close of the apostolic age. To such, it may be somewhat of a surprise to learn that not only is there no verse of Scripture that even hints these signs shall cease, but that there are literally hundreds of thousands of devout Christian believers in all parts of the world who have received the blessed Holy Spirit in Pentecostal fullness and have experienced and enjoyed the same supernatural workings which are everywhere apparent in the Book of Acts.
\nAny book, therefore, that throws light upon this all-important subject is welcomed by all truth-lovers. And this book which is so sanely written and which follows the Scriptures so closely will be doubly welcomed. It may be put with confidence into the hands of new converts as well as those who are more mature in the faith. If it awakens desire for personal experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and opens the door to the receiving and operation of the gifts of the Spirit, the effort will not have been in vain.
\nJ. ROSWELL FLOWER
\nPreface
\nThe following series of studies has mostly been prepared while the writer has been traveling on a world tour for Bible study campaigns. They have not been thrown together hurriedly, however, on that account, but represent the result of many years of meditation upon the revelation of the Scriptures concerning spiritual gifts, combined with that added familiarity with any subject that is gained by continually addressing public meetings concerning it. A deep indebtedness must also be acknowledged to other speakers and writers upon this most interesting theme for many valuable rays of light which they have contributed. No special claim is made for originality.
\nThe great interest and appreciation that a series of Bible studies, \u201cConcerning Spiritual Gifts,\u201d has aroused in practically every place without exception where they have been given, prove conclusively that believers everywhere are feeling a need of clear, sane, scriptural teaching on this subject; and they are also coming to appreciate that it can lead them into paths of fellowship with God that verily \u201cdrop fatness.\u201d
\nAt the close of such addresses the writer has continually had requests that they might be made available in permanent form, and he is therefore encouraged to believe that the publication of this little book will meet with wide acceptance.
\nIt is also published in the hope that it will prove of some service to the church of God at large and provide a helpful contribution\u2014however small\u2014to the general store of knowledge and understanding concerning a subject about which there seem to cling some extremely indefinite, if not positively erroneous, ideas.
\nAn honest endeavor has been made to approach the subject with as perfect a detachment as possible, by the grace of God from what might appear to be a denominational standpoint. Such a detachment must always be difficult, however, when a great movement has commended itself to one\u2019s affection and loyalty, and when one is seeking to fight its battle against misunderstanding, prejudice, and its own shortcomings on every hand. Nevertheless, we trust that the most critical reader will find little for controversy and much that is constructive.
\nThe accepted basis for all these studies has been, as will plainly appear, that the Bible is the inspired Word of God; that its recorded facts concerning spiritual gifts are accurate; and that its teaching regarding their exercise is to be received as having divine authority.
\nDONALD GEE
\n1
\nSpiritual Gifts
\nIt is impossible to read the New Testament without becoming impressed by the fact that the worship and experience of the early Christians possessed evidently some supernatural features.
\nMost obvious of all, a miraculous element entered prominently into the ministry of apostles and evangelists. They healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead. There is, in the closing chapter of the Book of Acts, an account of Paul\u2019s quite incidental ministry when shipwrecked on Melita that proves there was no diminution of these things as the apostolic age proceeded. A quaint, but revealing, phrase occurs in the story of his long ministry at Ephesus where it says that \u201cspecial miracles\u201d were wrought by Paul\u2019s hands (Acts 19:11). The word is literally \u201cnot the ordinary\u201d miracles, and the fact that some forms of miracles might even be regarded as \u201cordinary\u201d goes to show how widespread was the church\u2019s experience of the supernatural in those days.
\nIt is easy to form an exaggerated conception of the place of the supernatural in the experience of the early Christians, and many have done this. Examination will prove that, generally speaking, the miracles had some definite connection with the preaching of the gospel, either to attract or to authenticate as \u201csigns,\u201d in this way fulfilling the promise of the Lord that He would confirm the word in this manner. Our Lord wrought no miracles for His own sake during His earthly ministry, and it seems the divine will that His disciples should be like Him in this.
\nA careful, sane reading and interpretation of the New Testament reveals that the early Christians, and even the apostles, lived in most respects a life very little different from our own, and that they were quite normal men and women. They remained, in spite of Pentecost, \u201cearthen vessels,\u201d and they tasted a full cup of human joy and sorrow, riches and poverty, strength and weakness, health and infirmity, popularity and persecution without any special exemption because they happened to be also tasting the powers of the world to come. Nevertheless, the miraculous element was there, and its presence becomes all the more striking against such an otherwise normal background.
\nAnother supernatural feature of New Testament ministry is provided by prophets and prophesying. It is idle to interpret this as being their counterpart to what we should now call preaching. They had preachers and preaching in plenty, but the prophets were a distinct class by themselves (Acts 13:1; Ephesians 4:11), and various references to their ministry scattered throughout the Scriptures reveal that it always contained a necessary ingredient of something which all recognized as supernatural. If this were lacking, it was not prohesying, whatever else it might be. Occasionally they uttered predictions which were strikingly fulfilled (Acts 11:28).
\nSomewhat similar to the gift of prophecy was the more mysterious gift of \u201ctongues\u201d which, although it provided the outstanding supernatural phenomenon on the Day of Pentecost, evidently continued to be a widespread supernatural manifestation of the Spirit among early believers often far removed in place, and on occasion far removed in time, from the initial outpouring in Jerusalem.
\nMeetings of the Early Christians
\nIt is possible to reconstruct from scattered passages and allusions throughout the New Testament and especially 1 Corinthians a fairly clear picture of those gatherings of the Early Church. Various gifted and scholarly writers have done this, and some like Dean Farrar, have clothed their narrative with considerable dramatic effect. That those meetings never lacked plenty of vitality and variety, we can well believe!
\nOf course there were many features with which we are familiar in formal Christian worship today. There were praying, preaching, singing of hymns, and the ordinances of baptism and the Lord\u2019s supper. There were collections and business conferences. There were special fast days and special meetings when well-known brethren had come to town.
\nYet throughout all these familiar features there runs in the New Testament an unmistakable streak of \u201csomething\u201d different, some essentially supernatural touch that made them aglow with an unearthly quality. Prayer could become \u201cpraying in the spirit\u201d and might even be in \u201ctongues\u201d and occasionally entered into in unison and quite spontaneously by the whole multitude. Preaching and teaching had a distinct note of Spirit-given authority and was complemented and confirmed by the highly inspirational utterances of the prophets. Singing could be with the spirit as well as with the understanding, and sometimes took the form of purely spiritual songs. A miracle might occur in any meeting. Returned missionaries held their audiences spellbound as they told of mighty works that the Lord had done through them. Days of special fasting and prayer became momentous by the spoken voice of the Holy Spirit in their midst. Even conferences possessed such an overshadowing sense of the presence and direction of the Holy Ghost that their decisions were attributed to Him in conjunction with the church.1
\nAnd all this is recorded in the New Testament without the slightest suggestion of strain or hysteria or excitement as far as the Christians themselves were concerned. It was among the outsiders that the excitement occurred! With the believers it was all beautifully spontaneous, and accounted quite normal for those who had received the gift of the Holy Ghost.
\nThe Gift of the Holy Spirit
\nTherein lies the dynamic source of the whole subject. The early believers had all received the gift of the Holy Ghost as promised by our Lord and by Peter on the Day of Pentecost.
\nWith them it was not mere intellectual assent to some article in a creed defining an orthodox doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit. Neither were they satisfied to acquiesce to a vague idea that in some indefinite manner the Holy Spirit had been imparted to them upon conversion. They gladly and thankfully recognized His gracious operations in their regeneration and sanctification, but their own personal reception of the Holy Spirit was an intensely vivid experience. They knew when He came, where He came, and how He came.2 Nothing reveals this more than Paul\u2019s searching question to certain disciples whom he immediately sensed to be spiritually lacking in a vital part of their Christian inheritance\u2014\u201cHave ye received the Holy Ghost?\u201d (Acts 19:2). The challenge was to experience, not to doctrine. How significant! An Ephesian \u201cPentecost\u201d speedily rectified their shortcoming, and it was an experience as vivid as all the rest had received\u2014\u201cThey spake with tongues and prophesied.\u201d
\nThat passage, like its parallels, reveals that there is an intimate connection between the supernatural gifts of the Spirit and the initial baptism with the Holy Spirit. They constituted one of the accepted results of that blessing in the corporate life and activity of the assemblies; and the spiritual gifts with which their gatherings were enriched all arose out of the fact that the individuals comprising them were personally filled with the Spirit.
\nThe very phrase \u201cmanifestation of the Spirit\u201d makes this clear (1 Corinthians 12:7). The Greek word is phanerosis, a shining forth. The nine gifts that follow are examples of the different ways in which the indwelling Spirit might reveal himself through believers. It is the light shining through the lantern. A splendid modern illustration is provided by the well-known pocket electric flashlight. There is the power of the battery within the lamp that shines forth (literally \u201cmanifests\u201d itself) whenever the owner places his finger upon the switch.
\nThere must have been a wonderfully comforting, but sometimes also a terribly searching light in those early Christian assemblies as the Master used the gifts of the Spirit under His own loving yet faithful control. A wealth of insight is contained in just one verse where Paul says on this subject, \u201cThus are the secrets of his heart made manifest and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:25). Such could be the result of spiritual gifts in the church.
\nNot Imitation, but Inspiration
\nThe rich variety afforded by so many \u201cdiversities of operations\u201d where the gifts of the Spirit were concerned must have effectually prevented any of that staleness in the early churches that sometimes spreads over the form of public worship today like a deadly miasma. Meetings would present a constant spiritual freshness and power of grip and attraction without any shallow striving after novelties just for their own sake.
\nThat the meetings were \u201copen\u201d in the sense of possessing a general liberty for all to take part as the Spirit moved upon the members of the congregation seems beyond question. Passages such as 1 Corinthians 14, and the situations which they predicate, become meaningless and impossible unless this were so.
\nIt is a fallacy, however, to think that we can achieve a scriptural New Testament assembly by simply throwing our meetings open for all to take part as they will. A very sincere and praiseworthy desire to \u201cmake all things according to the pattern\u201d has led some Bible-loving believers into attempts to thus imitate some of the outward forms of the early Christian assemblies while they lack the fundamental principle of the One all-inspiring Spirit, received in His Pentecostal fullness. There is a profound difference between imitation and inspiration. The open ministry of the early churches was for spiritual gifts, not for natural activity. The common result of \u201copen meetings\u201d for a purely natural order of things is a measure of sterility and spiritual bondage worse than any adherence to a fixed form of worship that, as a general rule, does at least make room for consecrated natural talent.
\nActually speaking there was the highest type of order permeating and safeguarding the liberty of the early Christian congregations. The gift and ministry of \u201cgovernments\u201d clothed presiding elders with an authority recognized as from God himself (1 Corinthians 12:28), and this was accompanied by a \u201cdiscerning of spirits\u201d that detected the spiritual source of any passing manifestation. There could be no essential discord and no wearisome prolixity of the flesh while all was moving under a genuine anointing of the Spirit.
\nThe temporary disorders in connection with spiritual gifts at Corinth did not arise out of anything in the nature of the gifts themselves but only out of certain weaknesses in the believers who were exercising them. The apostle\u2019s final words on the matter, \u201cLet all things be done decently and in order,\u201d show that a proper exercise of spiritual gifts is consistent with the strictest ideas of genuine reverence.
\nTwo Forms of Ignorance
\nPaul commences his sane and illuminating treatment of the subject of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians, chapters 12 to 14, with the word, \u201cNow concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.\u201d
\nThe \u201cignorance\u201d that he was compelled to deal with at Corinth had nothing to do with their experience of these things as a vital spiritual reality in their lives. He testified that they \u201ccame behind in no gift\u201d as far as their experience was concerned. Their need was to gain a clearer understanding of the essential unity running through all the diverse gifts they actually possessed in their midst; to grasp that the one great mainspring of love in their heart could alone ensure the profitable use of their gifts for all; and their sense of values needed to be corrected both with regard to the relative importance of some of the gifts themselves, and also with the relative worth of even the best gifts compared to the highest elements of Christian character.
\nIt is a strange, yet obstinate, fallacy that persists in imagining that those who enjoyed these supernatural gifts of the Spirit were models of perfect holiness and spiritual maturity and that the mere fact that they exercised such gifts necessitated those high qualifications. The New Testament makes it clear that they were weak, erring men and women who although sanctified by the Holy Spirit, were still compassed about by human infirmities, made many perfectly sincere mistakes, and needed the wise and sympathetic instruction of one who was their spiritual \u201cfather\u201d in Christ to kindly lead them into the right way.
\nToday we confront a more fundamental \u201cignorance\u201d concerning spiritual gifts. We unhappily face an almost complete lack of any personal experience of them whatsoever. It is therefore no wonder that the plain references to them in the New Testament appear dim and mysterious and are sometimes used as a basis for applications that have no real connection at all with the actual subject that inspired them. Moreover this \u201cignorance\u201d is all the while excused and confirmed by a quiet and constant assumption that in any case these things are not intended for today and need therefore contain no more interest for us than a long-past phase of church history.
\nStartling indeed, yet pregnant with possibilities of an amazing spiritual revival in the church, is the challenging thought that the supernatural gifts of the Spirit with which the early Christians were endowed are even yet within the reach of simple faith and loving obedience. To a consideration of this revolutionary challenge we now turn.
\n2
\nAre Spiritual Gifts for Today?
\nMany ask if spiritual gifts are for today. Why not? The burden of proof surely lies with those who say, \u201cNo,\u201d rather than with those who say, \u201cYes.\u201d There is nothing in Scripture, reason, or experience to make us believe that the gifts of the Spirit are not for today\u2014every one of them.
\nWhat are some of the arguments usually advanced as to why the supernatural gifts which characterized the Church in the first century should not be expected in the 20th?
\n1. \u201cThe Lord withdrew these manifestations of His Holy Spirit at the close of the apostolic age.\u201d
\nOn what authority, we ask, is this daring assertion foisted on the Christian church? Certainly not on the authority of the New Testament. There is not one line of it to indicate any intention of God to withdraw these gifts. On the contrary, we read that \u201cthe gifts and calling of God are without repentance\u201d (Romans 11:29); that \u201cJesus Christ [is] the same yesterday, and today, and for ever\u201d (Hebrews 13:8); and that the risen Lord who worked with His first followers confirming His Word with signs following (Mark 16:20) is also with them \u201ceven unto the end of the age\u201d (Matthew 28:20). If we are going to whittle down the New Testament pattern for Christian experience to suit our own experience or our own opinions, then where are we going to stop?
\nThere is just one passage sometimes quoted that seems for a moment to give color to the supposition that some of the gifts of the Spirit are not for today. It is the statement in 1 Corinthians 13:8: \u201cWhether there be tongues, they shall cease.\u201d It is strange that some people always fasten on tongues and ignore the fact that prophecy and knowledge are included; these folk usually have a superabundance of the latter, and would very strongly repudiate that it had vanished away in their case!
\nBut this passage is plainly referring to \u201cwhen that which is perfect is come\u201d (verse 10), and does not refer to now, when we see through a glass darkly; but to then, when we shall see face to face (verse 12). As a matter of fact, the whole passage strongly proves that we should expect spiritual gifts to remain right up till the end of this age because their divine purpose will not be achieved until that which is perfect is come. It will be generally agreed that this is not yet.
\n2. \u201cBut history proves that the gifts ceased with the apostolic age.\u201d
\nThis statement is both true and false. As a matter of fact, it can be truthfully affirmed that history proves nothing of the sort, rather the reverse.
\nThere is an element of truth in it, insomuch that there was a great diminution of these gifts not only after the apostolic age, but probably even toward its close. This was not because the Lord withdrew them; but, to quote John Wesley, \u201cBecause the love of many, almost of all Christians so called, was waxed cold.\u2026 This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian church.\u201d It is a significant fact that in times of revival all through church history they have reappeared in some form or other. One word of caution should be given here. It is surely a serious thing to accuse God of withdrawing these gifts if the real fact is that the church lost them through lukewarmness!
\nBut actually speaking, the statement is historically false. The gifts have never entirely ceased. Irenaeus, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Augustine, all refer to these gifts as being still existent in their own times. Even during the dark Middle Ages they appeared among the persecuted Waldenses and Albigenses; then among the Jansenists, the early Quakers, the so-called French prophets, the early Methodists; down to the \u201cIrvingite\u201d Church of the 19th century. There were many saints who spoke with tongues and had other manifestations of the Holy Spirit long before the present great outpouring that began about 1900.
\n3. \u201cThe New Testament canon is now completed, and so ministry through spiritual gifts is no longer needed\u2014we have the written Word.\u201d
\nSuch an argument rests upon a complete misconception of the true nature and purpose of the gifts of the Spirit. It assumes that in the Early Church utterances through these gifts had all the authority of the Scriptures, but the New Testament utterly disproves such an idea. The Early Church always appealed to the Scriptures of the Old Testament (never to their own prophets, be it noted) for support for all doctrine and final settlement in every dispute (Acts 2:16; 15:15; 28:23). The \u201cprophecy of Scripture\u201d (2 Peter 1:20) provided a totally different level of authority to the spiritual gifts among them, and it does so still.
\nThe purpose of spiritual gifts will be dealt with in our next chapter, but suffice it to state here that they were given neither to provide the New Testament nor to fill the gap while it was being written. Their purpose was auxiliary and distinct, and rightly used and in their proper sphere they are as valuable and needed today as ever.
\n4. \u201cBut they are no longer needed today because the world is now convinced of the truth of Christianity\u201d.
\nIs such an argument soberly advanced? Even in nominally Christian lands there are multitudes of unbelievers. Is the church of today to depend only on intellectual and oratorical appeals for the victory of the gospel? Apparently this is assumed to be the case, judging from the training given our ministers in the theological colleges. Such weapons have their legitimate and valuable place we admit, but there are multitudes who will never be moved and opened to the gospel except by the manifestation of supernatural power. They are panting for it in full view of a powerless church.
\nThat the healing of the sick, etc., does have great power to arouse the indifferent, convict of sin, attract to the gospel, and lead to genuine conversions is proved by the phenomenal way crowds are being attracted where such ministry is being given. They also clothe regular meetings of assemblies with such a sense of the reality and presence of the Living God that an entirely new enthusiasm is being kindled among Christians who are tasting these things. Is not this necessary and valuable?
\nIn the great heathen lands the missionary is facing almost identical conditions to those of the early apostles. Surely it must be admitted that here, at least, the gifts of the Spirit will form an invaluable aid to the messenger of the Cross. But if their reality and value on the mission field be admitted, then the argument vanishes that they are not for today!
\n5. \u201cBut if these gifts are for today, then why are they not manifested and possessed by our great church leaders?\u201d
\nFor various regrettable reasons. In cases where they have apostatized from the simplicity of the gospel, and the truth as it is in Jesus, where the fundamentals of the Christian faith are no longer believed in\u2014then one could hardly expect the Holy Spirit to be manifesting His presence in this way in such ministries.
\nWhere leaders are still happily sound in the faith, \u201conce for all delivered to the saints,\u201d they may still be in a strangely inconsistent position of absolute unbelief where spiritual gifts are concerned; they neither want them, expect them, nor believe that they can have them. The principle, therefore, infallibly applies\u2014\u201caccording to your faith be it unto you.\u201d God is not out forcing these things on unbelief. In some sad cases the price needed to be paid has been judged too heavy, and the bitter opposition that follows is often only the attempt of a condemning conscience to excuse the failure to follow in a pathway to which at one time God clearly called.
\nAmong some of God\u2019s most spiritual and devoted children there is a strangely perverted and exaggerated dread of demon power and spiritual deception. As though the Lord left the man sincerely seeking a closer walk with himself to become the sport of the fiends of hell! Such should ponder Luke 11:11\u201313. They appear to prefer no experience of the supernatural at all, lest it should prove wrong. They forget there are plain tests for the supernatural given in the New Testament within the reach of every believer, and that a spirit of fear is specially deprecated. It has been Satan\u2019s masterstroke to so raise fears of deception that he is thereby able to keep many of God\u2019s dear children out of their inheritance on this line. The saddest part is that he has actually found tools for this work among some of the finest Christian teachers of the hour\u2014even after years of unsuccessful attempts to prove anything of Satan in some of the experiences God\u2019s children have enjoyed. Fear and prejudice do their deadly work.
\nThere are absolutely no valid reasons why the church should not today be fully enjoying the possession and exercise of every gift of the Spirit. We heartily praise God for those that have been in large measure restored to their normal place among us. There is still \u201cland to be possessed.\u201d We must press on for more, remembering that the courage of faith will be needed. Since the land is well within the divinely appointed boundaries, however, we can have every confidence that our God will yet cause us, by His infinite grace, to fully inherit.
\n3
\nThe Purpose of Spiritual Gifts
\nThe earliest preachers of the gospel were on the whole \u201cunlearned and ignorant men.\u201d It is very important, however, that we should clearly understand that they were the instruments definitely chosen by God for their great task. The original Twelve were selected by Christ from out of a great multitude of disciples. The suggestion that He only used them because better educated men or more naturally gifted material were not available did not present itself. They were His deliberate choice.
\nThis principle, and also its divine purpose, is stated with the utmost plainness of speech in 1 Corinthians 1:27\u201329: \u201cGod hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; \u2026 things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence.\u201d Paul, who on his own testimony could have boasted of his personal education and natural advantages, deliberately repudiated all the assistance these might bring and gloried in the fact that the spiritual source of his power was in Christ alone, through the enduement of the Spirit of God (Romans 15:1, 18, 19; 1 Corinthians 2:1\u20135).
\nMoreover, the witness of the corporate life of the church was intended to be a supernatural witness. Its central point was testimony to a risen Christ who had ascended to the Father\u2019s right hand in heaven, but still continued working with and by His people on earth, thus perpetuating what He had only begun \u201cboth to do and to teach\u201d while on earth (Acts 1:1). The effective power for such witnessing was to be the Holy Spirit coming upon believers (Acts 1:8).
\nArising out of these things can be seen the direct purpose of spiritual gifts. They were to provide a spiritual capability far mightier than the finest natural abilities could ever supply; and, deeper still, they were to provide the supernatural basis for a supernatural order of ministry.
\nThe close relationship between the various particular gifts of the Spirit and the various offices or ministries set by God in His church is made very apparent by their juxtaposition in 1 Corinthians 12 (compare verses 8\u201310 with verse 28). The one subject logically arises from the other; indeed they are not even different subjects but only two aspects of one. As far as the work of the ministry in the church is concerned, it will always be the happy privilege accorded to human consecration for the Lord to use every natural talent and opportunity with which His providence has endowed us by birth or circumstance. But this fact can never disturb the fundamental principle that for the type of ministry that has been revealed as God\u2019s plan for His church, the one supreme essential is some dynamic operation of the Holy Spirit in and through the minister.
\nA Spiritual Ministry
\nHaving established the principle that all true Christian ministry springs from a divine equipment, it is well to pause for a moment to measure how far we have wandered from this principle today when men are accepted for the work of the ministry who do not even have any real witness to the New Birth, let alone the baptism in the Holy Ghost, which is the first great essential for effective service. And added to this, the average training given is simply a packing in of purely natural knowledge and the improvement of purely natural endowments with practically no regard for spiritual gifts.
\nThere is also a purpose in the steady exercise of the gifts of the Spirit in the church far deeper than simply providing her needs on the lines of ministry. Arising from the fact that they are supernatural and divine in their origin comes this other fact\u2014that they are a continual \u201cmanifestation of the Spirit,\u201d an abiding and inspiring reminder of His presence and power.
\nMinistry on the line of natural gifts can rarely give this impression. It more often draws attention to the brilliance of the individual and glorifies man. But true ministry on the line of spiritual gifts leaves man in the background and glorifies God. Such was true apostolic ministry. (See 1 Corinthians 2.)
\nA Ministry Open to All
\nThe Lord\u2019s plan for ministry in His church is beautifully opened up in 1 Corinthians 12:12\u201327; and it includes a share for every believer. All may have a part. Candid students of the New Testament are compelled to admit that the \u201cone-man\u201d ministry so generally prevailing among the churches today is not the divine order as therein revealed.
\nSuch a statement had better be instantly safeguarded, however, lest we appear to favor that ultra-democratic and lawless tendency noticeable in some quarters which recognizes no office and no government, and would bring all to one common level of authority and position in the church. This is often a natural swing of the pendulum from the opposite extreme. The ideal, and the scriptural model, is a perfect blending of liberty for all to share in spiritual ministry, with a recognition that some are divinely appointed to offices of leadership and divinely gifted for outstanding ministries as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.
\nBut how beautiful that through a spiritual gift the humblest believer can contribute something to the whole body of Christ, and that, moreover, the whole Body suffers loss if that apparently insignificant ministry is withheld! Thus Paul, describing a meeting of the Corinthian assembly, writes: \u201cOne is prepared to sing a hymn of praise, another to exercise his gift of teaching, another his gift of tongues, another to deliver his revelation (i.e., the gift of prophecy), another an interpretation\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:26, Conybeare). In the same chapter he visualizes the whole assembly either speaking with tongues or prohesying (verse 5), and connects most desirable results with the latter (verses 24 and 31).
\nSpiritual gifts rightly exercised have a divine purpose of distinct blessing both for the unbeliever and the church of God. Their orderly exercise is essential to this end; but this will make the subject of a further study.
\nIn the Personal Sphere
\nThis must not be overlooked in a study on the purpose of spiritual gifts; and strangely enough, Paul\u2019s teaching and testimony in 1 Corinthians 14 indicate quite plainly that the gift that some have hastily thought was chiefly for public use\u2014the gift of tongues\u2014really has a most important private use.
\nPaul thanks God he speaks with tongues more than all of them (verse 18), yet he evidently uses the gift very little in public gatherings (verse 19). The only possible explanation of this seeming contradiction is that Paul exercised his gift in private. The key is in verses 2 and 28 where he distinctly states that the believer speaking in tongues is speaking to God and not man. Moreover, Paul added \u201cI will\u201d on occasion pray with the spirit only in this fashion. He was not afraid to exercise such a gift in this way; and who can tell how much of the blessings falling on others depended on these spiritual intercessions, and how much of his own mighty ministry in the power of the Holy Ghost arose from the flow of divine fullness into his own soul through this gracious avenue of communion.
\nPraying in an unknown tongue is a perfectly scriptural exercise. There is nothing unhealthily mysterious in such a means of communion between God and man either. \u201cGod is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth\u201d (John 4:24); the gift of tongues is plainly stated to give a power of utterance to the human spirit (1 Corinthians 14:14), and can therefore provide a legitimate means of fellowship between the redeemed and the Redeemer. There is no necessity for the intellect to be always active in prayer, especially in private devotions. The yearnings of the spirit may well express themselves independently.
\nManifesting the Power of God
\nThe results of such a supernatural experience and ministry within the Early Church were far-reaching, and make one of its most distinctive features. Happily, as seen in chapter one, we have every ground for believing that they can be repeated.
\nEndued with the gifts of the word of wisdom and knowledge, the church was equipped within for a ministry as divinely illuminating as it was amazing to those only used to the subtleties of a proud philosophy which had no place for those it chose to call \u201cfoolish.\u201d Yet such weak instruments God now \u201cchose\u201d (1 Corinthians 1:27) to confound all mere worldly wisdom, and they \u201cturned the world upside down\u201d in a generation!
\nEndued with gifts of healing and power of working miracles, the Church had a tremendous power in her combat with heathenism, of which Paul\u2019s striking Elymas with blindness (Acts 13), healing the sick at Ephesus (ch. 19), and healing the father of Publius (ch. 28) are notable examples out of many.
\nEndued with the gifts of faith and discerning of spirits, the Church was made strong to face the bitterest persecution and endure the rigors of the war, for she had a supernatural grip upon the Unseen and Eternal. The subtlest devices of the enemy, when he would come as a very \u201cangel of light,\u201d were also instantly detected.
\nEndued with gifts of inspired utterance, the Church had words of revelation continually spoken in her midst which must have thrilled with divine fire both speakers and hearers, and provided a ministry the like of which could not be produced by either brilliant natural oratory or the most persuasive logic. Its benefit to the Church for \u201cexhortation, edification, and comfort\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:3) was invaluable; its convicting power upon the unbeliever could be tremendous (verse 24).
\nManifesting the Presence of God
\nProbably the effect of spiritual gifts rightly exercised in church gatherings is most forcefully and accurately summed up in verse 25\u2014\u201cGod is in (among) you of a truth.\u201d
\nThis was the testimony not of an enthusiast already predisposed to accept everything as from God, but of an unbeliever, one who had come in avowedly skeptical and possibly hostile; and yet so impressed was he by these manifestations of the Spirit of God that the sense of God\u2019s presence dominated every other feeling and remained afterwards as the one abiding memory of that visit to a Christian assembly.
\nThe ultimate and full purpose of spiritual gifts thus stands revealed. They are to bring men face to face with the reality of the Invisible God; to make the Church realize that the Holy Spirit is ever present, and that all true ministry springs from Him who is her only source of life and power, and to make the unbeliever equally conscious that God cannot be forgotten and that sin dare not be trifled with.
\nWhen once again the Church is enjoying her divine equipment, by redeeming grace, of every one of the Spirit\u2019s gifts, she will truly be \u201cfair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.\u201d
\n4
\nThe Word of Wisdom
\nStanding at the head of the list of spiritual gifts given to us in 1 Corinthians 12:8\u201310 we find the word of wisdom. It is fitting that this should be so. We are reminded of Proverbs 4:7, \u201cWisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting get understanding.\u201d
\nFor even knowledge without wisdom can end in sheer fanaticism and the proper exercise of all the other gifts of the Spirit must largely depend upon a true value being placed upon the word of wisdom. It is true that divine love, so eloquently described in 1 Corinthians 13 in connection with spiritual gifts, is the supreme essential in the heart for their edifying use in the church; but this divine wisdom is only that same love operative in the understanding. There can be no conceivable conflict between that love that is the first fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and that wisdom that is the first gift of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:8). They move hand in hand. Hence we feel no reason to doubt that here we have one of those \u201cbest gifts\u201d which we are commanded to covet earnestly.
\nNatural or Supernatural?
\nBut are these gifts of the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge natural or supernatural gifts? Some would have us believe they are simply natural gifts of wisdom and knowledge that have been sanctified by the Holy Spirit and consecrated to the service of God. Such an explanation admittedly gives God the glory for our natural gifts and rightly implies that their highest use is achieved when they are yielded to the Spirit of God for the work of the ministry.
\nBut does such an explanation cover all the ground? Does it fit in with the full New Testament picture? There seems to be an insuperable objection to it on the ground that these gifts are placed in a list of \u201cmanifestations\u201d of the Holy Spirit, and are peculiarly a part of that divine enduement of \u201cpower from on high\u201d which comes to believers just because they have received the Holy Spirit. This is the insistent note of the whole passage (1 Corinthians 12:3\u201311): \u201cTo one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit.\u2026 All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit\u201d
\nNow the unregenerate man, who has never received the Spirit of God, may have great natural gifts of wisdom and knowledge. Eminent books of philosophy and standard works of reference in many departments of knowledge have been written by avowed atheists. It would be absurd to attribute such things to the Spirit of God. And even sanctification, as we have seen, cannot alter the essential nature of these purely human talents.
\nThere is only one way to consistently deal with the whole subject of these spiritual gifts, and that is to regard them as each and all involving some measure of a supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit. No other view meets the plain requirement of the context. No one will seriously contend that the New Testament gifts of healing had any connection with medical science; or that the gift of tongues was simply the ordinary acquisition of foreign languages. We are therefore logically compelled to recognize that the gifts of the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge are supernatural also and are part of that operation of God in and through His church by which \u201cthe Spirit becomes manifest\u201d (1 Corinthians 12:7, Conybeare).
\nApostolic Preaching
\nIn 1 Corinthians, chapters one to three, the word \u201cwisdom\u201d (sophos) and its cognates occur about 24 times, and always with a marked distinction between the wisdom of men and the wisdom of God.
\nPaul especially states that he deliberately put aside that natural wisdom which he admittedly possessed and might have used in order that he might the rather be a channel for the supernatural wisdom of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:1\u20134). He affirms that this wisdom comes by revelation (verse 10). Consistent with this are our Lord\u2019s great words to His Father recorded in Luke 10:21, \u201cI thank thee \u2026 that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes.\u201d
\nThe use of \u201cthe word of wisdom\u201d is here shown to be particularly the preaching of Christ and the Cross and those things that God has prepared for them that love Him. \u201cThe teaching of the deep things of God; His ways of salvation which the Spirit alone can search out and reveal. Such teaching appeals to the intuitional faculty\u201d (Dr. J. Massie). Only those who have sought to preach on these great and fundamental themes know how helpless are unaided human powers to deal with them adequately.
\nIt may be objected that it is the normal function of all Christian preaching and teaching to center on these subjects, and this we do not dispute. But in ministry of a truly Pentecostal order there ofttimes comes shining forth a revelation in words that make our hearts burn within us. Many of us have experienced the holy awe and the thrilling exaltation of spirit that accompanies a ministry of the spiritual gift of the word of wisdom on these lines. We have recognized once again \u201cnot the words which man\u2019s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.\u201d And with the recognition has come a deep thankfulness that these glorious ministrations of the Spirit are still active in the church.
\nApostolic Government
\nMore readily recognized as a word of wisdom, perhaps, and also of supreme value and importance to the church, is the manifestation of this gift in counsel and government.
\nThe normal life of the church provides a constant need for wise leadership. Problems will occur and delicate situations arise among the most spiritual believers. The Early Church enjoyed no exemption from these things, even when living in the first flush of Pentecostal grace and power; and no subsequent revival will remove us from their presence.
\nThere is a serious temptation, however, for believers to resort to purely carnal principles of wisdom and worldly expediency rather than to the wisdom that cometh from above. We must never forget that the Church is a spiritual body and that even its most practical problems, such as finance, are always spiritual at heart. Therefore the wisdom the assemblies need for their government and guidance in all things is spiritual wisdom. Men filled with the Holy Ghost and wisdom are far more necessary than men who may have proved successful in business or brilliant in a profession.
\nThe outstanding example in the New Testament of the word of wisdom in this sphere is the way the Twelve dealt with the problem of the daily ministration to widows (Acts 6:1\u20137). Their direction to the multitude is worth quoting in full: \u201cIt is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.\u201d The more one meditates upon that wise answer the more perfect it appears; it embodies loyalty to the very highest spiritual principles with the soundest common sense. It is also significant that it \u201cpleased the whole multitude\u201d and quickly produced a new touch of blessing that added a great many more to the faith. Such results are always a sure mark that a manifestation of the word of wisdom has illuminated counsel.
\nIn a manifestation of the spiritual gift of the word of wisdom something flashes. There is a sense of the divine, a consciousness of an utterance transcending all the garnered stores of merely human experience. One is deeply conscious that the supremely right thing has been said and the true course of action indicated. No further appeal is desired because the heart rests in a calm satisfaction that the will of God has been revealed. Such an operation of the Spirit of God glorifies the council chamber with a sense of the divine Presence as precious and powerful as anything that can be experienced on occasions that most would regard as of a more spiritual nature.
\nIn the many pressing questions which continually came before Paul in the \u201ccare of all the churches,\u201d he undoubtedly enjoyed a rich experience of the spiritual gift of the word of wisdom; and, fortunately for us, much of it has been preserved in his epistles. Peter\u2019s brotherly commendation of Paul\u2019s letters is specially interesting in this connection in view of the fact that he particularly states that they were written \u201caccording to the wisdom given unto him\u201d (2 Peter 3:15). It is also noteworthy that Paul was plainly conscious of this when he was giving his own judgment, mature and wise though it might be, and when he was pronouncing the \u201cword of the Lord\u201d imparted through the Spirit\u2019s revelation (1 Corinthians 7:12, 25, 40).
\nWisdom for an Emergency
\nIn the very nature of the ministry it involves, the gift of the word of wisdom can most usually be looked for in those set by God in positions of government and leadership in the assemblies, such as apostles and presbyters.
\nThe Lord has not shut up any of these gifts into watertight compartments, however, and there are occasions when any believer may expect a gracious personal manifestation of any one of them to meet an urgent need and respond to an opportunity.
\nOur Lord made a precious promise to His disciples that He would give them \u201ca mouth and wisdom\u201d which could effectually reply to their adversaries (Luke 21:15); and such utterances were definitely attributed to the Holy Spirit (Luke 12:12). In this respect we might regard them as another form of manifesting the spiritual gift of the word of wisdom.
\nTwo instances in our Lord\u2019s own ministry stand out as grand illustrations of this kind of thing. There is, first of all, His question to the chief priests concerning the baptism of John (Matthew 21:25); His searching challenge not only provided the perfect answer to His opponents but also positively confirmed the truth. Second, there is His famous reply to the subtle question about paying tribute to Caesar (Matthew 22:21); an answer so wise and full that it has provoked the admiration of the ages ever since.
\nAs a humble illustration of something of the same kind of thing in more modern times, we recall the story of the Scots Covenanting lass who, when stopped one sabbath morning by the dragoons on her way to the conventicle in some hidden hollow in the moors, replied to their questionings that she was going to hear her \u201cElder Brother\u2019s will read.\u201d They let her proceed, with a hope that she would receive a goodly portion! The story needs an understanding of Hebrews 9:15\u201317 to be appreciated.
\nOne final word of warning is needed. There are some who regard themselves as having the gift of wisdom, and they apparently consider themselves as endowed with an infallible sagacity that can be tapped to order at any time! In the mistaken sense in which such people mean it, there is no such gift. It is the gift of the word of wisdom, and implies a spoken utterance through a direct operation of the Holy Spirit at a given moment, rather than an abiding deposit of supernatural wisdom.
\nBelievers do not become reservoirs of this kind of wisdom. All the \u201ctreasures of wisdom and knowledge\u201d are hid in Christ (Colossians 2:3). Severed from His grace a counsel of utter foolishness can be given even by one who at other times has had truly supernatural flashes of the spiritual gift. Its manifestation is subject to the divine sovereignty, and dependent upon the Spirit-filled believer walking in unbroken communion with the Lord.
\n5
\nThe Word of Knowledge
\nEveryone who attempts to define this gift of the Spirit is compelled to recognize at the outset the plain fact that the Scriptures provide for the task no material that is avowedly and unmistakably a manifestation of the word of knowledge. When dealing with such gifts as healing or prophecy or tongues, we have plenty of material to work upon that supplies us with undoubted examples of those gifts in operation. This is not so with the word of knowledge. Assumption is not proof. Beautiful thoughts may contain much that is true and yet miss the mark.
\nThese things being so, we ought carefully to avoid dogmatizing on this subject. It makes it more than probable that of apparently conflicting conceptions of the gift each contains an element of truth, yet not the whole truth. We are under a debt of gratitude to all who have contributed their personal ray of light on the matter, especially when it has signally honored the Lord in revealing yet more of the wonder of His diverse ways of working in what we call the supernatural realm, the true realm of spiritual gifts.
\nThe Omniscience of the Almighty
\nAll knowledge is ultimately with the Lord, \u201cin whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.\u201d It is therefore a reasonable thing to believe that the Holy Spirit can impart a manifestation of any part of the divine \u201call-knowledge\u201d at any time as He will. It is recognized that the deep source of every manifestation of the Spirit is in some attribute of God, and God knows all things. Therefore a revelation springing from that all-embracing knowledge can be justly described as a word of knowledge; even as a manifestation of heavenly wisdom from the same divine Source can be called a word of wisdom.
\nThere are many testimonies among God\u2019s people to very precious and sacred experiences along this line. Revelations have been given that have imparted knowledge of the circumstances of missionaries and distant friends in need or danger, and such knowledge has guided intercessory prayer and provoked practical assistance. Light has been accorded upon hidden matters that has been of deep value in purging the church, or guiding her leaders in counsel.
\nThere are instances in the Scriptures where the omniscience of the Lord has revealed matters to His servants, and in this way endued them with a supernatural knowledge of facts that proved to be most helpful. In a yet deeper realm there has operated a revelation of what was in men\u2019s hearts.
\nWe have to recognize, however, that this type of supernatural revelation almost always has some connection with the ministry of prophets in the sacred records. By its very nature it is part and parcel of the prophetic gift. As a recognized supernatural operation of the Spirit of God, we hold such manifestations of the divine power and knowledge before our hearts with adoring wonder; but whether they afford undoubted examples of that spiritual gift in the body of Christ that Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:8 calls the \u201cword of knowledge,\u201d remains an open question. They may be a part of it.
\nThere are certain grave objections to accepting the above view as a completely adequate definition and conception of the spiritual gift of the word of knowledge. In the first place, it seems to unnecessarily confuse it, as we have seen, with the gift of prophecy. Yet they are two quite distinct spiritual gifts.
\nMoreover, the place of these gifts in the church and the whole context of 1 Corinthians 12:14 seems to indicate that we should the rather look for a definition of the gift that involves an accepted type of ministry \u201cset\u201d by God in the church (1 Corinthians 12:28). Wonderful and precious and valuable as are supernatural revelations of facts to the people of God, they hardly constitute a defined ministry in the body of Christ, especially when these things mostly occur in the personal sphere of private lives rather than in the public sphere of the corporate life and ministry of the church. Yet this is the obvious place for the gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8\u201310.
\nIt also seems certain that the gift of the word of knowledge is coupled with the gift of the word of wisdom at the head of the list for a purpose. We have already seen how fundamental, how important in ministry, and how helpful in counsel is the spiritual gift of the word of wisdom. It would appear as though an adequate conception of the word of knowledge requires a gift and a resultant ministry scarcely inferior in value and importance.
\nWisdom and Knowledge
\nThe relationship of wisdom and knowledge is so intimate that it provides a real difficulty in the minds of many to form a clear distinction between the spiritual gifts of the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge. It is helpful to keep in mind the well-known and excellent definition of wisdom as \u201cknowledge rightly applied.\u201d The fact that we are now dealing with supernatural operations of the Holy Spirit does not change the essential nature of the things themselves. Wisdom is still wisdom, and knowledge is still knowledge, whether supernaturally revealed or naturally acquired.
\nKnowledge, therefore, is the raw material that wisdom uses. Without knowledge even wisdom is baffled and limited, like a clever architect with poor building materials or a competent businessman with restricted capital. Knowledge is vital.
\nWisdom is greater than knowledge because knowledge is not active and directive in itself. For instance, I may know that a service station can provide me with gasoline for my car; but it will be wisdom that directs me to fill my tank before commencing a long journey. Mere knowledge in itself is of little practical value unless it is rightly applied, and this principle is just as true in spiritual things as in every other realm. That is the reason highly educated people in the natural, and believers with a lot of Bible knowledge in the spiritual, can sometimes do extremely foolish and fanatical things. They have plenty of knowledge but lack the wisdom to use it rightly. Very often people with quite a limited amount of mere knowledge possess a rich store of genuine wisdom.
\nWhen wisdom and knowledge are going hand in hand, as they are intended to do in the divine purpose, and as they are beautifully and significantly linked together in the gifts of the Spirit, there can come no greater blessing to the child of God than an increase of true knowledge. It is an enlarged knowledge of God in Christ that brings more abundant life. No wonder Paul prayed for the saints at Ephesus that, though they had been already \u201csealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,\u201d they might also receive the \u201cSpirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him\u201d (Ephesians 1:1\u201318).
\nA Supernatural Ministry
\nIt is to be specially noted that Paul prayed for a supernatural agency to give them this vital knowledge. It had to be imparted through an operation of the Spirit. Yet the revelation was to be the reasonable faculties\u2014\u201cthe eyes of your understanding being enlightened.\u201d It is most important in the great work of establishing believers in the faith that truth which has been first of all received through the intuitive faculties should also be seen to be reasonable. Yet such \u201cwatering\u201d of what others have \u201cplanted\u201d demands an equally spiritual ministry; all is of God (1 Corinthians 3:6). It is a principle that spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Revelation is required in a true acquisition of the full knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus.
\nThere is a sense in which this revelation must always be a deeply personal experience. It would be a dangerous mistake, however, to make private \u201crevelations\u201d the medium for imparting the full knowledge that makes a mature Christian. Experience has proved the peril of this fallacy. The true channel for the revelation of truth to the believer is found in those spiritual gifts, and consequent ministries, that God has \u201cset in the church.\u201d We therefore look with confidence among these varied manifestations of the One Spirit for a ministry that shall particularly be for a supernatural and yet rational enlightenment of the understanding in the things of God. There seems every ground for believing that just such an operation of the Spirit is contained in a manifestation of the word of knowledge. Such a conception seems adequate in supplying a worthy view of what appears to be an important spiritual gift in the church.
\nAn objection may be raised even after the truths we have just reviewed, that any conception of the word of knowledge as a teaching gift does violence to the fundamental principle that all the gifts of the Spirit are supernatural. It is strange how difficult some seem to find it to see a manifestation of the Spirit unless it be strikingly spectacular. This was probably the reason why the Corinthians preferred tongues to prophecy.
\nThe one who raises this objection hastily assumes that if we conceive of the word of knowledge as a teaching gift, then all teaching in the church involves that gift. This is absurd. We believe that a precious manifestation of the word of wisdom may enlighten counsel; but we are equally certain that much valuable counsel in the church proceeds from purely natural resources of mature experience. We believe that the gift of discerning of spirits can give a supernatural insight into spiritual matters; but there is a discernment both of good and of evil that comes to those who by \u201creason of use have their senses exercised\u201d (Hebrews 5:14) and is not in any sense directly supernatural. Hence there is, and always must and should be, in the church an essential teaching ministry that is the result of consecrated natural ability working upon a generally accepted body of doctrine. Paul commanded Timothy to make provision for just this type of necessary ministry (2 Timothy 2:2). Our Bible schools largely exist to supply it today.
\nBut it seems strangely inconsistent not to expect a supernatural manifestation of the Spirit to occur in such an important ministry as that of teaching if we allow it in other, and dare we say lesser, spheres. Happy experience compels us to testify that such a manifestation does occur. There come times when the Spirit of revelation is so operating through a teacher exercising an anointed ministry that we become conscious of an illumination transcending all natural ability either to gain or to impart. It is in such hours that the sheep hear the voice of their Good Shepherd speaking through human lips, even as the early Christians of Asia had heard Christ speaking and had been taught by Him at Ephesus (Ephesians 4:20, 21). We know it because our hearts burn within us as surely as theirs did upon the Emmaus road when the risen Christ \u201cexpounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.\u201d By the gifts of the Spirit that Voice still expounds the Scriptures on that sweetest of all themes\u2014himself.
\nAlong with a growing appreciation of that other view of the gift of the word of knowledge which we have noted, we are happy to present this also as an adequate, consistent, and inspiring conception of this manifestation of the Spirit in the church.
\nProphets and Teachers
\nBefore leaving this part of our subject we feel constrained to draw attention to what may have been an unrecognized danger.
\nThere are two main types of ministry in the church\u2014prophets and teachers (Acts 13:1). Their function is to balance each other. Through one the Spirit appeals to the emotional faculties; through the other, to the logical. Through both He seeks to move and hold the will. Both are essential to the church\u2019s well-being; it is to her peril that either of them is despised or neglected. Prophetic and emotional types of ministry tend to preponderate in times of revival but quickly degenerate into fanatical error unless balanced by teaching and logical ministry. Teaching tends to assume the ascendancy as a wave of revival recedes until once again the old prophetic fire asserts itself, and the church becomes rightly stirred by profound emotion.
\nNow the purposes of divine wisdom in giving these two so diverse, and yet complementary, gifts to the church may be gravely hindered unless both are seen to proceed equally from the One Spirit, and to equally afford a manifestation of His grace and power.
\nIt is comparatively easy to recognize the supernatural element in true prophesying, and a manifestation of the Spirit is admitted right away. The fact that there is a spiritual gift of prophecy immediately connects that gift with the office of the prophet in everybody\u2019s conception of the thing. Indeed there almost invariably occurs a dangerous exaggeration in the popular imagination where the supernatural element in both direct prohesying and in tongues and interpretation is concerned. They become clothed with an importance and authority far beyond anything revealed in the New Testament.
\nBut what shall we say if the divinely appointed safeguard in the ministry of teachers sent from God is bereft, in the popular conception of the assemblies, of a manifestation of any spiritual gift at all? Immediately it is robbed of its power to counterbalance and richly complement the highly emotional utterances of the prophets and the speakers with tongues. The one is regarded as supernatural; the other as natural. One is spiritual; the other is carnal! Yet this is what actually happens again and again where God blesses His people with true Pentecostal revival. The richest anointed ministry of teaching is compelled to be silent before the poorest and most questionable, prophesying and tongues.
\nIt is this serious fact that provides one of the graver reasons why we do plead for a worthy conception of the true place of the spiritual gift of the word of knowledge, that leaves room, at least, for us to recognize it as a manifestation of the Spirit that does sometimes occur in connection with a ministry of anointed teaching.
\n(For further comment concerning the word of knowledge, see Addendum, page 133.)
\n6
\nFaith, Gifts of Healing, Working of Miracles
\nWe now come to the study of a wonderful group of spiritual gifts of power. They are different from the two previous gifts, and from those that follow (except discerning of spirits), in that these others are all gifts of utterance.
\nIt is significant that faith comes in this group, as being fundamental to the other gifts of power, though the least spectacular. It should be noted that the most spectacular gifts are mentioned last in each group. The greater ministries are much less apparent to the public eye, though they lie at the root of all the others.
\nWe now turn to the study of these three gifts of the Spirit separately.
\nThe Gift of Faith
\nThe spiritual gift of faith is to be distinguished from that ordinary faith without which it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Nothing is plainer in the New Testament than that a certain element of faith is essential to the very salvation of the soul. \u201cThe just shall live by faith\u201d provides the keynote of the Christian life. It is true that even this saving faith is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8), but this is not the spiritual gift of faith referred to in 1 Corinthians 12:9. \u201cTo another faith by the same Spirit\u201d evidently implies that this is a particular manifestation of the Holy Ghost granted only to certain individuals, and not bestowed upon all equally. Weymouth translates it: \u201cTo a third man, by means of the same Spirit, special faith.\u201d
\nThe spiritual gift of faith is a special quality of faith, sometimes called by our older theologians the \u201cfaith of miracles.\u201d It would seem to come upon certain of God\u2019s servants in times of special crisis or opportunity in such mighty power that they are lifted right out of the realm of even natural and ordinary faith in God\u2014and have a divine certainty put within their souls that triumphs over everything. It is a magnificent gift and is probably exercised frequently with far-reaching results by some unrecognized children of God.
\nPerhaps one of the most striking examples of this special enduement of power is Elijah on Mount Carmel. In the face of simply overwhelming odds, he is calmly triumphant to the point of mocking his opponents; he even glories in making the thing he is asking of God more than ever naturally impossible; he soaks the sacrifice with water (1 Kings 18:33\u201335). The quiet certainty of his evening prayer is one of the most powerful passages in the Bible.
\nWhat a contrast in chapter 19, where the special anointing seems to have been lifted. It may be argued that there could be no special gift of faith in Elijah, since James 5:17 distinctly says that he was \u201ca man of like passions\u201d with ourselves; but it should be noted that this refers to his prayers for rain. We have always felt that there is some special element of inspiration present in Elijah\u2019s prayer for fire on Carmel. And in any case, all spiritual gifts operate in \u201cmen of like passions\u201d with ourselves, because the gracious truth is that God intends them for \u201courselves.\u201d
\nPossibly the same quality of faith is in the thought of our Lord where He says in Mark 11:22, \u201cHave the faith of God\u201d (margin). It was faith of this particular quality of which He could say that a grain of it would move a mountain! (Matthew 17:20). A little bit of that divine faith, which is an attribute of the Almighty, dropped into the soul of man\u2014what miracles it can produce!
\nIt seems to have dropped into the heart of Peter that day when he and John went up to the temple to pray (Acts 3:4); and after the miracle had been performed, he distinctly attributed it to faith in the Name (v. 16).
\nMany of us have been conscious at times of a special faith coming into our souls upon certain matters. If this has not been the actual gift of faith it has been analogous to it and of the same order.
\nGifts of Healing
\nThere is no spiritual gift we have heard more frequently desired than the gift of healing. It is indeed only natural that human pity and sympathy should long to have the power to miraculously alleviate suffering. Yet we fear that there is often a mistaken idea that if possessed of the gifts of healing, the happy possessor could invariably heal all cases of sickness that would be met; and could enter any hospital and bid every sufferer go in peace.
\nA moment\u2019s quiet thought over the testimony of the New Testament would quickly apply balance to such a tempting dream. Although certain members of the early churches undoubtedly possessed the power to supernaturally heal, there are no indications that they therefore went around healing everybody without exception, or that they were even permitted to heal all that were sick within the church. Then, as now, there were some healings.
\nAt the flood tide of our Lord\u2019s own ministry on this line it is certainly stated that \u201cHe healed them all,\u201d but such a statement must be kept strictly within its local and temporary setting (contrast John 5:3 and 6). It is very clear that after all His wonderful ministry on that line, He still left many sick. It is outside the scope of this present study to inquire into the possible reasons for this. Recognition of the plain facts in no wise weakens the scriptural basis for believing in divine healing.
\nOur purpose is to balance the idea that manifestation of the gifts of healing implies unlimited and absolute power to deliver from all diseases. One unfortunate result of this mistaken conception is that some beautiful and valuable ministries among us on this line today are thereby misjudged and criticized because of what are called \u201cfailures.\u201d We all need steady study of the New Testament to correct and balance some of our ideas.
\nBut this gift was in glorious evidence in the Early Church and had tremendous value at times in the propagation of the gospel. This indicates, indeed, its particular sphere and purpose. It appears to be a spiritual gift especially connected with the ministry of an evangelist and granted to those called to fill that office. Notice the example of Philip (Acts 8:6, 7). It often gave the apostles an open door in their evangelistic work; as, for instance, the healing of the father of Publius by Paul (Acts 28:8\u201310). Its exercise attracted the attention of the people to the gospel of Christ in a way that was both arresting and calculated to produce a sympathetic hearing. As a \u201csign gift\u201d it has always been in the forefront and is just as powerful for that purpose today.
\nWe would note that these special gifts of healing (for the description is plural and seems to indicate a variety of forms of this gift), though given only to certain individuals, do not preclude all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ from laying hands upon the sick for their recovery (Mark 16:18), or all elders in the church from anointing with oil for healing (James 5:14). Such ministries are not dependent upon possessing any spiritual gift of healing.
\nThese gifts of healing were essentially from the Holy Ghost, and were operated \u201cby the same Spirit.\u201d It was the energy of God at work in and through the believer that brought healing. Nothing is more emphatic than the denial of the apostles that such gifts dwelt in their own natural powers (Act 3:12; 14:15). They make no reference to magnetic, psychic, or mental powers; the glory was given directly to God who worked in and through them. The healings were divine healings. This is vastly different from the teaching and claims of Christian Science and kindred cults, which in the final analysis are always the power of mind over matter and make man his own healer and savior after all.
\nIt remains only to be said that it is absolutely hopeless to try to make any legitimate connection between the gifts of healing and medical science; or to try and claim that modern medical missions are the present-day manifestation of these spiritual gifts of the New Testament church. We would be the last to disparage the magnificent work done today along the line of healing by natural means, or to underestimate the real value to Christian missions of much of the medical work. But we must not allow such considerations to befog the testimony of the Scriptures.
\nIt is a regrettable fact that some skilled doctors and nurses today are avowed unbelievers and openly godless in life and character. On the other hand, it seems clear to any unbiased mind that the New Testament gifts of healing had no connection with medical science but were obviously supernatural and attributed as such directly to the Spirit of God. These gifts are manifested quite separately from any knowledge or use of natural means.
\nIn their final essence they are the very life of the great Head of the Church, flowing by the Holy Ghost through the members of His body.
\nWorking of Miracles
\nThe working of miracles is put here in the very middle of the list (1 Corinthians 12:8\u201311), and just takes its place among other manifestations of the Spirit which we regard as more ordinary. Probably this is where we are wrong: first, because we do not expect the miraculous sufficiently; and, second, because we do not see enough of the miraculous in the ordinary.
\nThe literal Greek of the passage is dunamis, \u201coperations of works of power.\u201d The great thought is of power; the power of God operating by the Spirit of God in and through the church of God.
\nJesus definitely promised His disciples that they should perform the same miracles that He had, and even greater (John 14:12). The promise of the Spirit was linked with their receiving \u201cpower\u201d (Acts 1:8). The simple narrative of the New Testament records that just such miracles did take place. Peter raised Dorcas to life (Acts 9:40). There is the moving instance of Paul raising Eutychus (20:10) and the striking statement in 19:11, 12, that at Ephesus, God wrought special (not the ordinary!) miracles by the hand of Paul. Even Peter\u2019s shadow seemed to be charged with divine power at times (Acts 5:15).
\nPossibly all the manifestations of the gift of the working of miracles were not of such an outstanding character, but it seems pretty clear that in some form or other this gift was quite commonly distributed among the churches. Yet they were very ordinary individuals in other ways, full of much that must be regarded as failure and weakness. Samson is probably an outstanding Old Testament example of what 1 Corinthians 13:1, 2 makes clear regarding New Testament spiritual gifts: namely, that even the most outwardly marvelous of them, such as tongues or miracles, could be manifested side by side with a singular lack of sanctification. This problem must be dealt with later; our present purpose is simply to emphasize that very ordinary people have exercised some very extraordinary gifts of the Spirit of God.
\nTo suggest that the gift of working of miracles may be expected today will appear to be bordering upon presumption or fanaticism. Yet such a position is perfectly logical. We have no ground for distinguishing between the gifts. The present challenge of spiritism, and all the other forms of supernatural power at work today which are not from God, make us all the more ready to believe that the God who answered Jannes and Jambres of old by a still greater exhibition of His divine power will meet this challenge in the same way today.
\n7
\nThe Gift of Prophecy
\nWhen we study the spiritual gift of prophecy we have a very wide field to consider. In its broadest aspect it covers all inspired utterances, or at least all divinely inspired utterances. The ministry of prophets is not only of importance in the New Testament, but it also occupies a large part of the Old. Paul writes with such evident favor toward the exercise of this gift that he exhorts believers to covet it (1 Corinthians 14:39), and even suggests a whole assembly prophesying (verse 24).
\nIt will at least help to define our study if we immediately dismiss the idea that scriptural prophesying is nothing more than ordinary preaching. Of course the prophets of the Bible were preachers of a very high order, but it was preaching with a distinct characteristic. It is impossible to separate true prophesying from the idea of definite inspiration. \u201cThe prophet spoke more from the impulse of a sudden inspiration, from the light of a sudden revelation at the moment (apokalupsis\u20131 Corinthians 14:30).\u2026 The idea of speaking from an immediate revelation seems here to be fundamental, as relating either to future events, or to the mind of the Spirit in general\u201d (Robinson Lex., p. 693).
\nSuch ministry is obviously distinct from ordinary preaching; but it must be observed that there is probably a much larger element of prophesying in some forms of inspirational preaching than is generally recognized.
\nIt was occasionally part of the ministry of a prophet to foretell; but although this aspect of prophesying has very largely captured the popular idea of the function of a prophet, it was always only a small part of a true prophetic ministry.
\nThe Gift of Prophecy and the Office of Prophet
\nThe gift of prophecy seems to have been quite common in the Early Church, but there was only a limited number, and a clearly defined class who were officially regarded as prophets. Among them were Judas, Silas, Agabus, etc. It was evidently possible for \u201call\u201d to prophesy (1 Corinthians 14:24) on occasion, but this did not constitute them prophets in the official sense in which they are spoken of in Acts 13:1 or Ephesians 4:11.
\nOur present purpose is the study of the gift rather than the office; but it is not out of place to point out that even in an official sense the New Testament prophet occupies a very different place from the great prophets of the Old Testament. Samuel, for instance (1 Samuel 3:20), was the recognized spokesman, not only for Jehovah to the people, but also for the people to Jehovah (8:21).
\nAll this is changed in the new dispensation ushered in at Pentecost. It is now the privilege of all believers to be personally led by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14). It cannot be stated too emphatically that we need neither prophet nor priest to come between ourselves and the Lord in this present dispensation, and to submit for one moment to such a system is a definite step backwards into bondage.
\nThere are no indications in the New Testament that it is the function of prophets in the church to be her guides in the sense that they guided Israel of old\u2014by a system of \u201cenquiring of the Lord.\u201d There are indeed instances such as the prophecy of Agabus concerning the forthcoming famine (Acts 11:28) or the fate of Paul at Jerusalem (Acts 21:11) where the prophet plainly foretells what may happen. But it is significant that he offers no guidance; it is left to the individual members of the church to \u201cdetermine\u201d (they \u201cdecided\u201d\u2014Weymouth, Acts 11:29) what they would do; and to Paul, to decide his own course of action (Acts 21:13).
\nStill more significant is the fact that there is no attempt to use the gift of prophecy or the office of prophet in the great dispute that arose about circumcision in Acts 15; or in Paul\u2019s decision as to the next step for his ministry in Acts 16:6\u201310, though on both occasions Silas, a recognized prophet (15:32), was on the spot.
\nIt can be affirmed that there is not one single instance of the gift of prophecy being deliberately resorted to for guidance in the New Testament. This is very significant, and marks with sufficient clearness a big difference in the scope of the gift in this dispensation compared with the old.
\nThe Nature and Scope of the Gift of Prophecy
\nThe essential nature of the gift of prophecy is the same throughout the dispensation. It always maintains its distinctive feature of being \u201cinspired utterance.\u201d There are many varying degrees of inspiration, however, and this principle must be clearly kept in mind in dealing with the respective value and authority of prophetic utterances.
\nThere is first and foremost that which Peter calls the \u201cprophecy of scripture\u201d (2 Peter 1:20); this includes the inspired written prophecy of the Old Testament and those portions of the New Testament which can be called prophecy, concluding with the Book of Revelation. This degree of inspiration was infallible.
\nParallel with this, we find in both Old Testament and New Testament a type of prophecy which was evidently of a much lower degree of divine inspiration, and was not regarded as infallible. In this class must be included, for instance, Medad and Eldad and the seventy elders (Numbers 11:25\u201329); or the prophets whom Saul joined (1 Samuel 10:10). The prophets of the New Testament churches also seem to come in the same class, for their utterances are plainly not to be regarded as infallible; and their ministry is, generally speaking, to be limited (1 Corinthians 14:29\u201332).
\nThe Value of the Gift
\nRecognition of the limitations of the spiritual gift of prophecy in the church in no wise detracts from appreciation of its abiding value, and of the vital element in Christian ministry which it supplies.
\nIt provides a most essential balance to the didactic and logical ministry of the teacher. Prophecy appeals mostly to the emotions; teaching, to the intellect. Prophecy sets on fire that which teaching enlightens. It is beautiful to notice the union of prophets and teachers in the church at Antioch (Acts 13:1) and the two types are always needed for a well-rounded ministry.
\nThey are, moreover, mutually corrective. If teaching is needed to correct the danger of fanaticism as a result of too much prophesying, yet truly inspired prophecy is also needed to correct the equal dangers of a purely intellectual and rational line of ministry. Someone has said that the history of the Church has been a constant struggle between its prophets and its teachers. This is an unfortunate viewpoint, though possessing elements of truth. It is better to recognize that the one type of ministry has continually acted as a divinely provided corrective and complement to the other. The Spirit of God is equally in both; it is only a matter of diverse spiritual gifts that need mutual recognition.
\nTrue prophecy, whether of that direct type with which we have become more happily familiar in the outpouring of the Spirit, or of that less clearly recognized type which is often blended into fervent and emotional preaching, is a most powerful spiritual gift.
\nIt can sweep the assembly up into heights of glory and enthusiasm, melt with tenderness, and make to tremble with awe. It truly ministers to the believer \u201cexhortation, edification and comfort\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:3); and in the unbeliever can produce deep conviction (verse 24).
\nUtterance of this inspired character must always come with added authority and power. Barren times in the Church\u2019s history have usually been marked by little evidence of the prophetic gift, and its return has usually accompanied revival.
\nOne of the greatest responsibilities entrusted to us today is the preservation of the actual exercise of these gifts of inspired utterance in the church. We emphasize the \u201cactual exercise,\u201d because it is so very easy to stand for these things theoretically and doctrinally without actually manifesting them. It is sure to cost something to stand for the real gift of prophecy and to give it its lawful place in our assemblies today; but unless we do so we are persuaded that one very big part of the purpose of God in the outpouring of the Spirit will be frustrated.
\nThe Safeguards Against Its Abuse
\nOne of the greatest reasons why exercise of the gifts of inspired utterance is so frequently curtailed and even entirely suppressed is the constant dread of error, either in the shape of fanaticism or false inspiration.
\nNothing could be easier than to make a list of the various inspirational movements in the Church, from Montanism onward, that have started out presumably to reestablish the gift of prophecy in its proper place but have ended either in ignominious failure through enthusiastic excesses, or have become gradually absorbed once again into the general lukearmness and unbelief of the Church as a whole.
\nWhere so many others have failed, dare we hope to succeed? Our answer must be\u2014only by the grace of God. One thing at least is in our favor: we can learn lessons from the mistakes others have made before us.
\nWhat are our principal safeguards against deception?
\n(a) Those spiritual weapons plainly indicated in the New Testament, including definite tests for the spirits who may be inspiring the speakers (1 Corinthians 12:3; 1 John 4:1\u20136), the spiritual gift of discerning of spirits (1 Corinthians 12:10), and the general spiritual discernment of those who may equally claim to have received the Holy Spirit and His gifts (1 Corinthians 14:29). We believe that every true child of God who is walking in the light will have some form of \u201cwitness\u201d within regarding truth and error.
\n(b) Those more natural, yet invaluable, weapons that can come into our hands by diligent and painstaking study of all that the Scriptures reveal and teach concerning the gift of prophecy, coupled with due notice of lessons to be learned from Church history.
\nScriptural Principles
\nAmong the scriptural principles concerning the gift of prophecy which ought to be specially noted are:
\n1. Its Three Possible Sources
\n(a) The Holy Spirit. 2 Samuel 23:2; Jeremiah 1:9; Acts 19:6; 21:11.
\n(b) Evil and lying spirits. Isaiah 8:19, 20; 1 Kings 22:22; Matthew 8:29; Acts 16:17.
\n(c) The human spirit. Jeremiah 23:16; Ezekiel 13:2, 3.
\nThis latter is not, of course, genuine inspiration at all. But it can pass for it so plausibly that it must needs be considered as a possible source of so-called prophecy.
\n2. Its Varying Degrees of Genuine Inspiration
\n(a) The infallible inspiration of the Scriptures.
\n(b) The ordinary inspiration of prophetic utterance (not infallible), which can possibly cover a tremendously wide range of degrees of purity and power.
\n3. Its Dispensational Setting
\n(a) The contrast between the position of the prophet in the Old Testament and the New.
\n(b) The difference made by Pentecost, since when all believers have the privilege of receiving the Holy Spirit and of direct access to God both for worship and guidance.
\nThe Importance of Prophecy
\nThe root reason inspirational movements in the past have so frequently come to grief has either been, on the one hand, attaching too much infallibility and authority to prophetic utterances, or on the other hand, of \u201cdespising\u201d this particular manifestation of the Holy Spirit until it has been thereby \u201cquenched.\u201d
\nThe great secret for preserving this glorious spiritual gift in active exercise in the church therefore appears to be the striking, by divine grace, of a perfect balance between a sufficient faith in the Holy Ghost to allow His free operation, and a sufficient obedience to the Scriptures to \u201cprove all things\u201d and to only \u201chold fast that which is good\u201d (1 Thessalonians 5:19\u201321).
\nTo silence the gift of prophecy is to silence what has often been in the past, and what may, we believe, often be again the very expression of the emotion of God, the fullness of the divine feeling finding at least some expression through inadequate human channels.
\nIn its fullest purity the gift demands a very high order of fellowship between the vessel and its Maker; a sympathy with the Infinite that can arise only out of a life of closest communion with God. From such a communion sprang Jeremiah\u2019s eloquent words, \u201cThen I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name. But His Word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.\u201d That is prophecy!
\n8
\nDiscerning of Spirits
\nWe trust it will not appear an unworthy introduction to this chapter if we state very strongly that the spiritual gift of discerning of spirits (1 Corinthians 12:10) must on no account be confused with a critical spirit in the natural. We regret to say that we have met people who are adept at finding something wrong in the motives of other people; and then they complacently deceive very few but themselves that their particular \u201cgift\u201d is discerning of spirits! As John Wesley once remarked, such a \u201ctalent\u201d might well be buried without grieving the Lord at all.
\nA more worthy mistake is confusing keen insight into human nature, such as some people possess naturally to a singular degree, with this supernatural gift.
\nBut a mere glance at the name of this gift reveals more accurately its true character and scope; for it has to do with discerning of spirits, not of men in their purely natural courses of action.
\nA Defense Against Deception
\nTo appreciate the value and character of this gift one must remember that the Early Church was, and the Church in every age should be, enjoying constant experience of the supernatural in its meetings for worship and also in the daily life of its members.
\nAs we have already seen, there was inspired utterance coming continually through prophets and teachers, and also other manifestations of Unseen Power at work in healing the sick and working of miracles. One has only to remember how persistently Satan has dogged the activities of the Holy Spirit and counterfeited the most beautiful works of God to realize the danger and possibility of deceiving spirits working great havoc among the churches by plausibly imitating in outward appearance some of the superficial features of the real work of the Holy Spirit. It should also be borne in mind that in the Early Church (and it can easily happen again today) there were converts, either true or false, who up till recently had been steeped in heathenism, spiritism, and demon possession. The danger, therefore, was real.
\nThe mistake which some who have seen the danger are making today, however, is in underestimating the watchful and gracious provision of the great Head of the Church in arming her sufficiently against such subtle deceptions. We are amazed and grieved when competent teachers write and talk as though the Lord leaves His blood-bought people to become the easy prey of the enemy. This spiritual gift is one proof of His care and provision of her need, and to state that the Church in arming her sufficiently against such piece of presumption with absolutely no Scripture to support it, or reason either. For the very ones who tell us that God no longer bestows this gift are the very ones who tell us that the danger of deceiving spirits is getting greater and greater as the age draws to a close. How terribly, if unwittingly, they dishonor God by inferring that He leaves us more defenseless than ever.
\nMoreover, the gift of the discerning of spirits is not only defensive, it can also be offensive in the sense that once an evil spirit is detected as operating through some human channel, that channel can then be delivered through the power of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
\nThe Nature of This Gift
\nWe have already seen that this is a gift of the Spirit, manifesting His presence, and operating by His power. Its efficient exercise is unthinkable, if not impossible, apart from a believer\u2019s being full of the Holy Ghost, as in the case of Paul and the sorcerer (Acts 13:9).
\nThe word \u201cdiscerning\u201d (Greek, diakrisis) means a \u201cjudging through.\u201d Robinson defines it as \u201ca distinguishing, a discerning clearly.\u201d The essential thoughts of the word are a piercing of all that is merely outward, and seeing right through; then forming a judgment based on that insight. It is a sharp and powerful word.
\nA gift of natural insight can be invaluable to the businessman or the politician. And how much more is such a gift of spiritual insight to the believer in the spiritual realm, and especially the believer who may be placed in a responsible position of church government.
\nIt cannot be repeated too emphatically that this spiritual gift can operate only in and through the spiritual man, not in the carnal believer. This is in strict conformity with the principle of 1 Corinthians 2:14 and 15, that spiritual things are only \u201cspiritually discerned.\u201d We have already noted in a previous study that it is the \u201cother\u201d prophets who judge prophetic utterances (1 Corinthians 14:29). After all, this is only fair and logical.
\nDangers of False Discernment
\nMuch harm has often been done, and the work of God grievously hindered, by unspiritual or prejudiced people judging and condemning a real work of God because it did not conform to their personal standards of just how the Almighty should manifest His power.
\nRevivals have been hindered by ministers and others who objected to strong workings by the Spirit of God upon the emotions, and hastily put them down as \u201cfalse excitement,\u201d \u201chysteria,\u201d etc. Note an experience of John Wesley\u2019s taken from his journal, for December 24th, 1739: \u201cTowards morning, one of them was overwhelmed with joy and love, and could not help showing it by strong cries and by tears. At this another was much displeased, saying, \u2018It was only nature, imagination, and animal spirits.\u2019 O Thou jealous God, lay not this sin to her charge; and let us not be wise above what is written!\u201d The Church today has need of that prayer for some we have met!
\nThe baptism in the Holy Spirit is so little understood by some Christian workers that we have known cases where a glass of water has been fetched to recover some saint from a \u201cswoon.\u201d Blessed swoon! In the same category, we presume, are those who attribute Paul\u2019s conversation outside Damascus to a stroke of epilepsy. We say, with Joseph Parker, \u201cRoll on, thou mighty epilepsy!\u201d
\nThose who pretend to pass judgment in spiritual matters must be prepared to show their credentials of personal spiritual experience. Unfortunately a great many people condemn wholesale manifestations and experiences connected with the baptism in the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts who have had practically no personal experience of either. We bluntly ask, Are they in a position to judge? Both the New Testament and common reason agree in giving a negative reply.
\nIt must be remembered that there are also other scriptural standards for \u201ctrying the spirits\u201d (Matthew 7:15\u201323; 1 Corinthians 12:3; 1 John 4:1\u20136), by which all pretensions to an accurate gift of spiritual discernment can be checked. Moreover, the use of these tests for the supernatural is open to all believers, and does not imply the possession of any particular gift of the Spirit.
\nThe Divine Attribute at Its Source
\nReturning to our study of the gift of discerning of spirits, we would like to trace it a little to its divine source in the very power of the Godhead, by which through the Holy Spirit, it is manifested through the believer.
\nThat attribute of God by which He possesses absolute discernment in all things, the perfect power of \u201cjudging through\u201d (diakrisis), is one of the most clearly announced of all the divine attributes in Holy Writ. (See such passages as 1 Chronicles 28:9; Psalm 139; Jeremiah 17:10; Hebrews 4:13.) It is this, among other things, which qualifies God so unanswerably to be the Judge of all the earth. This power actually abides also in His written Word (Hebrews 4:12).
\nIt was beautifully and strikingly manifested in His Son; as in the case of Nathanael (John 1:47\u201350), or His marvelous insight revealed in the diverse treatment of Nicodemus (John 3:3) and the woman of Samaria (John 4:16). This power of divine insight as relating to men is specially stated as residing in our Lord in John 2:25.
\nIs it any wonder, therefore, that when the Holy Spirit entirely possesses a human vessel there shall be a little spark of this same mighty power at work, not only as regarding man, but also spirits, for both realms are equally open and naked to the eye of God.
\nMen Who Have Possessed This Gift
\nOn the broad line of possessing a spiritual discernment that was able to see very plainly into the heart of things, there are some outstanding examples in the Bible. There was Joseph, who was famous for this power, to whatever source his followers mistakenly attributed it (Genesis 44:5); there was David who was \u201cas an angel of God \u2026 to discern\u201d (2 Samuel 14:17); Solomon, his son, asked for and received the same gift (1 Kings 3:9); Elisha\u2019s treatment of Gehazi also reveals a truly supernatural discernment in operation (2 Kings 5:26).
\nTurning to the New Testament, we have the arresting instance of Peter\u2019s drastic dealings with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5); and a little later his equally stern denunciation of Simon the sorcerer, based upon discernment of the condition of his heart (Acts 8:23), though outwardly he had apparently deceived the rest of them (v. 13).
\nThere is a strong suggestion in Peter\u2019s words that he discerned an evil spirit at work in and through Simon. And, finally, an outstanding example of the exercise of the gift of discerning of spirits is Paul\u2019s rebuke to the spirit possessing the poor girl at Philippi, which eventually landed him in jail (Acts 16:16\u201318). The plausible testimony the spirit was outwardly bearing to the character and calling of the servants of God in no wise deceived the Spirit-filled apostle as to the real nature of its source.
\nThe possession of such a gift of the Spirit must have usually marked a presbyter out as a man specially fitted by God to have charge of assemblies, and it probably coincided with the office of governments (1 Corinthians 12:28). In that case, there is all the more reason to suppose that the possessor of such a gift would also have the \u201clove of God shed abroad\u201d in his heart \u201cby the Holy Spirit which is given unto us\u201d; and far from exercising the gift in a harsh, censorious spirit, he would the rather have a great compassion on these poor dupes of evil powers, and seek in the power and grace of the Lord Jesus their swift deliverance. But at the same time a real love from God for the assemblies would watch keenly that they were kept from deception and harm.
\nUnderlying Spiritual Facts That This Gift Implies
\nThe first thing this gift reveals, therefore, to the one who possesses it in active operation by the Holy Spirit is the true nature of the source of any supernatural manifestation\u2014whether it is divine or satanic; whether it should be accepted or rejected, relied upon or resisted. There will be not only a powerful \u201cwitness\u201d within as to the true source of the manifestation, but an actual revelation of the spirit at work. It also takes great grace to balance the possession of such a gift, and great grace to exercise it to the glory of God.
\nIn closing, we draw attention to the fact that the mere existence of such a gift presupposes the real existence also of evil and deceiving spirits, manifesting themselves through human beings. Some Christians today are hardly alive to these fundamental facts of the spiritual realm.
\nTo the individual believer baptized in the Holy Ghost, and to the assembly experiencing the operation of spiritual gifts, the whole spiritual world becomes very real. It must inevitably follow that an increasing opening of the eyes to the reality of satanic power will accompany a gracious granting of increasing spiritual vision to perceive the things of God. Happy is the believer, and happy is the assembly, that meets these enlarged spiritual sensibilities in an attitude of watchfulness, but also of a supreme faith that God will always guard the Church purchased by His own blood, and finally defeat even the subtlest attacks of the great enemy.
\n9
\nTongues and Interpretation
\nMuch has been written concerning the gift of tongues. Yet with it all, there remains among Christians in general a very vague idea as to its true nature.
\nThe older commentators were mostly content to explain it as a miraculous power conferred upon the apostles to preach the gospel to all nations in their own respective languages, although such an explanation palpably disagrees\u2014as the more honest of them admit\u2014with the plainly recorded facts of the New Testament.
\nOn the Day of Pentecost the disciples were all speaking with tongues before the crowd gathered; and as a matter of fact, it was \u201cwhen this was noised abroad the multitude came together.\u201d They overheard their own dialects being uttered as the disciples were speaking \u201cthe wonderful works of God,\u201d but it is obvious that the crowd was not, at that time, being directly addressed. When the moment came to preach, it was Peter alone who spoke to the multitude, while the eleven stood with him, and he used the one common language that all could understand (Acts 2:1\u201314).
\nIt is impossible to connect subsequent occasions when believers received the Holy Ghost and spoke with tongues with any thought of preaching the gospel for no unbelievers were present (Acts 10:46; 19:6).
\nFinally, in 1 Corinthians 14 we are explicitly told that \u201che that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God, for no man understandeth him\u201d (verse 2), and an equally supernatural gift of interpretation was needed to make the utterances intelligible to the assembly. So much, therefore, for the hoary fallacy that the gift was for \u201cpreaching to the heathen.\u201d
\nMost recent expositors and writers tend to give up as hopeless any attempt to account for the phenomenon of speaking with tongues on any grounds that would be palatable to modern lines of thought. They either dismiss the record as an illusion or else attempt to draw spiritual lessons from it. Some of the latter are of value, but they do not justify a quiet neglect of the simple facts as given in the New Testament.
\nThe Real Nature of Tongues
\nFrom the data presented to us in the Scriptures it seems clear that the gift of tongues consisted of a power of more or less ecstatic speech, in languages with which the speaker was not naturally familiar. It can readily be conceived of as a quite logical outcome from an intense fullness of emotion, and a perfectly reasonable cause for such a fullness of spiritual feeling is provided in the gift of the Holy Ghost. There is nothing illogical in men and women speaking with tongues under the spiritual conditions portrayed in the New Testament.
\nThe gift apparently came under the control of the one who possessed it through spiritual maturity (1 Corinthians 14:28). Yet in the first instance it seems to have been manifested as an almost spontaneous expression of otherwise unutterable ecstasy (Acts 10:44).
\nThe same principle of deep spiritual emotion appears to be inherent in this manifestation of the Spirit, even when it occurs as a recognized spiritual gift in the church rather than as a personal initial evidence of the Spirit\u2019s having been received. Paul describes it as operative in deep, mystical communion with God, and especially refers to prayer (1 Corinthians 14:2, 14). The understanding was temporarily suspended under the rush of spiritual feeling. The Holy Spirit evidently inspired the human spirit for this sacred exercise. It is incorrect and misleading to talk of the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues unless we are careful to understand that thereby we strictly mean that He is the divine Inspirer of the utterance that comes through human lips and from the depths of the human spirit.
\nIn its pure and true form it provided a very striking manifestation of the Holy Spirit active in the church. Although its chief purpose was for communion with God in prayer and praise, yet it could also provide an arresting sign to unbelievers if any were present. Divine providence could add to the impressiveness of the sign by causing the language uttered to be the mother tongue of the unbeliever, as on the Day of Pentecost. This was apparently incidental, however, and was not inherent in the gift.
\nIn the Church
\nAs a gifted ministry set by God, among others, within the Church, the gift of diversities of tongues was not so universal in its occurrence as when believers were being baptized with the Spirit. (Compare 1 Corinthians 12:28\u201330 with the passage in Acts.)
\nFor the purpose of rendering these ecstatic utterances of the spirit intelligible to the general assembly, and by so doing to preserve the essential principle governing the use of spiritual gifts in public worship that all should be orderly and conducive to general edification (1 Corinthians 14:26, 40), there was given a complementary and equally supernatural gift, either to the speaker in tongues or to another, of interpretation of tongues.
\nIt is distinctly affirmed that when the twin gifts of tongues and interpretation were exercised in proper order in the church, they equaled the gift of prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:5); and it is generally conceded that, since such is the case, they provide an equivalent method by which the Holy Spirit can cause His voice to be heard in the church. It should always be borne in mind, however, that the revealed purposes of the gift of tongues are chiefly devotional, and we do well to emphasize the fact. The normal spiritual gift for a \u201cmessage\u201d is the gift of prophecy, unless the Lord has a special purpose in using the gift of tongues as a \u201csign.\u201d There are some who would object to the scripturalness of so-called \u201cmessages\u201d in tongues altogether, on the ground that the actual term is not used in Scripture. But, \u201cIn the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak to this people.\u201d None can dispute that that is a \u201cmessage\u201d!
\nAmong believers in a normal spiritual condition, measured by New Testament standards, it should not be necessary for the Lord continually to resort to sign gifts of a strikingly supernatural character as far as the church is concerned. And for them the direct method of the gift of prophecy is more in keeping with their spiritual status, and for that reason is recommended by Paul as a matter of preference.
\nWhy Tongues Needed Regulating at Corinth
\nIt is wise to note here the reasons for Paul\u2019s apparent discouragement of speaking with tongues in the assembly at Corinth because these have been frequently exaggerated and misapplied.
\nThey were twofold: (a) There was too much speaking with tongues in the meetings at Corinth; (b) There was speaking with tongues in the meetings without interpretation.
\nWe purpose dealing with these abuses more fully in a further study; sufficient to note that for the first\u2014Paul stated a limit to the number who should publicly speak with tongues in one meeting (verse 27); and for the second\u2014He insisted upon interpretation being always given (verse 28).
\nAfter laying down these rules, however, he emphatically stated that speaking with tongues is not to be forbidden (verse 39), lest his precepts should be misunderstood as an intention to quench this manifestation of the Spirit altogether. All he pleaded for was balance. It is a pity that some Christian leaders today do not approach this gift in the same spirit.
\nWe have said above that the church should not normally require the exercise of these \u201csign gifts\u201d in great abundance; but by \u201cnormal\u201d we mean New Testament Christian experience, not present-day. Probably one reason there has apparently been an excessive manifestation and exercise of the gift of tongues during recent years is the abnormal spiritual condition of a church that has drifted tremendously from New Testament standards\u2014especially in its denial of the supernatural. Tongues have been needed again as a \u201csign,\u201d even in the church; and in addition to this, there has been the inevitable emphasis always placed upon a neglected truth or experience when it is first restored.
\nThose who exercise these gifts are exhorted to seek that they \u201cmay excel\u201d to the edification of the church. That is to say, they can be exercised in such maturity, order, and love that there shall be nothing repellant in their nature, or likely to cause an unnecessary stumbling block to anyone. When thus exercised, these gifts are singularly beautiful, and we trust that familiarity will never weaken our personal sense of awe and wonderment when the Spirit of God is truly manifesting His presence in the assembly in this way. These gifts bring the very atmosphere of heaven with them.
\nThe Gift of Interpretation of Tongues
\nThe gift of interpretation of tongues is essential to the profitable use of the gift of tongues in the assembly (1 Corinthians 14:5), and all those who speak publicly in tongues are directed to pray definitely for the gift of interpretation also (verse 13). This insures the possibility of the gift always being able to be used for profit. As a general rule, it is apparently better that only one should interpret in one meeting, for the two or three who may give utterances in tongues (verse 27). It does not follow that at all meetings of the assembly the same one should interpret, and the Scriptures nowhere speak of an office of \u201cinterpreter.\u201d Reason and prudence, however, command that, generally speaking, the gift of interpretation should be restricted to \u201cproved\u201d individuals, and especially in larger and more responsible gatherings.
\nThe purpose of the gift of interpretation is to render those ecstatic and inspired utterances by the Spirit, which have come forth in a tongue unknown to the vast majority present, available to the general understanding of all by repeating them distinctly in the ordinary language of the people assembled.
\nIt is possible to feel in spirit the glow and uplift or burden of an utterance in an unknown tongue, but the purpose of the gift of interpretation is to make this available to the understanding also that others may intelligently and rationally take part in the speaker\u2019s revelation, exaltation, or prayer, etc. It is always good that our whole being should take part in religious exercises, and not just one part of us. God wants the love of heart and soul, of mind and strength.
\nThe Nature of the Gift of Interpretation
\nIn many ways it will readily be seen that the spiritual gift of interpretation of tongues performs the same purpose as ordinary natural interpretation from one language to another, such as any of us are familiar with who have had to speak in foreign countries where we did not know the language, or have heard a foreign speaker being interpreted in our own land.
\nYet this spiritual gift is really vastly different both in its nature and in its mode of operation from ordinary interpreting. Like all these other gifts we have been considering, it is supernatural and comes directly from the Holy Spirit. It does not imply the slightest natural knowledge by the interpreter of the language spoken in tongues; and it logically follows that the interpretation is received not so much by close attention to the words of the one speaking in tongues as by a close concentration in spirit upon the Lord\u2014who alone gives the interpretation. The words are given by revelation and follow the rules of prophecy and all inspired utterance, coming either by vision, by burden, or by suggestion, just as the Lord may choose.
\nThere will probably be an immediate response to the utterance in tongues in the spirit of the believer whom the Lord desires to use for the interpretation. Such response will doubtless be governed also by the depth and purity of the speaking in tongues, and not less by the spiritual condition of the interpreter. It must obviously be possible to exercise a spiritual gift and yet be out of touch with the Lord (1 Corinthians 13:1); in which case the ready and beautiful exercise of the gift will be sadly hindered and marred.
\nThese Gifts Are Distinctive of This Dispensation
\nTongues and interpretation of tongues are the only two gifts of the Holy Spirit which we never find manifested in some way or other in the Old Testament.
\nIt is true that something similar to the gift of interpretation is found in the power given to men such as Joseph (Genesis 41:12, 13) and Daniel (Daniel 4:5) to interpret visions and dreams. But the gift is not really the same.
\nNeither do these gifts ever appear to have been manifested in our Lord\u2019s earthly ministry. (His utterances such as in Mark 7:34 or 15:34 are merely quoted in the Aramaic instead of in Greek, and are not in any sense speaking in an \u201cunknown tongue\u201d such as is meant in 1 Corinthians 14.)
\nThe gift of tongues, and its accompanying gift of interpretation, appears to have been specially reserved by God to mark the church dispensation of grace. This adds very greatly to the significance of this phenomenon on the Day of Pentecost when the present dispensation was ushered in. God was doing a \u201cnew thing,\u201d and it was accompanied by a new sign and a new manifestation of the Eternal Spirit.
\nThe Holy Spirit had been, before Pentecost, manifesting himself through various chosen vessels as He came upon them for special purposes; but now He came in a new way, to fill every one that would receive Him, right away to those \u201cwho are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call\u201d (Acts 2:39). His fullness that came upon each one of the company alike in the Upper Room was attested by a manifestation, and that manifestation chosen by divine wisdom was the use of those vocal organs so often used to work satanic mischief (James 3:6). The sovereignty that was revealed at Babel was again revealed at Pentecost. It represented the complete triumph, at least momentarily, and potentially ultimately, of redeeming grace over the whole being. The flag of the Victor was flung up, as it were, upon the most significant part of the captured soul\u2014that which Bunyan in his Holy War quaintly calls \u201cMouth Gate.\u201d
\nEven the very absurdity, to the human reason, of the gift of tongues is clothed with a divine intention. The abasement of all pride of intellect which its exercise necessitates proves more than ever the victory of grace.
\nIt is God\u2019s unique sign gift, reserved for this present dispensation in which we live. Is it any wonder, therefore, that we stand unflinchingly for its continuance until that which is perfect is come in the new age when we shall see Him \u201cface to face\u201d?
\n10
\nThe Gifts and Fruit of the Spirit
\nAn aspect of the subject of spiritual gifts which is of very great importance is their relationship to holiness.
\nSeveral questions press for an answer; questions that are not merely theoretical, but questions that force themselves upon us, sometimes rather jaggedly, from the realm of practical experience. Do spiritual gifts help toward holiness? Do they demand holiness before they can be bestowed? Are they an evidence of holiness? Does the personal holiness of the individual affect their exercise? Are the gifts worth troubling about since holiness is of such supreme importance?
\nTo avoid misunderstanding, we had better observe that by \u201choliness\u201d in this study we mean Christlikeness in character: that positive result of salvation by which the very life of Christ is being lived out again in and through the life and character of the believer. There are many outward graces that mark such a character, and foremost among them we may certainly place that beautiful list of what Paul calls in Galatians 5:22, 23 \u201cthe fruit of the Spirit.\u201d The list is as follows: \u201clove, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.\u201d All these he attributes to the work of divine grace in the soul; they are not in the natural soil, but come from God.
\nThe Difference Between Gifts and Fruit
\nIt is necessary to clearly understand the fundamental difference between these two terms. Fruit is a natural outcome, by a process of steady growth, of a principle of life within. Fruit takes times to develop and is brought to perfection by the assistance of much from outside, such as sunshine, rain, soil, etc. Gifts on the other hand, may be given by the generous action of someone without. They are usually complete as given, though their exercise by the recipient can become more perfect by use, as, for instance, in the gift of a camera, or an automobile. The essentials for our present study are that fruit comes gradually from within; while gifts come immediately from without. This definition is a little crude, but it helps to clear the necessary difference between the two.
\nThe fruit of the Spirit will thus be seen as the manfestation and outcome of the divine life put within the believer at regeneration; perhaps appearing almost instantly in some features, but more generally appearing gradually by a process of \u201cgrowth in grace.\u201d Its development will be helped by such outward means of grace as Christian fellowship and ministry, circumstances\u2014and, above all, communion with God. There is room for such fruit to grow throughout the whole course of a Christian\u2019s life; and holiness when viewed from this angle should be steadily progressive.
\nGifts of the Spirit, on the other hand, can be bestowed suddenly at any point in the believer\u2019s experience. The plain inference of the New Testament is that a gift was given to some believers when they first received the Holy Spirit. Other gifts were given at different crises of the Christian pathway (e.g., 1 Timothy 4:14\u2014most likely at Timothy\u2019s setting apart for the work of the ministry\u2014Acts 16:1\u20133). Still further gifts might be desired and prayed for at any time (1 Corinthians 12:31; 14:13, 39). The bestowal of gifts of the Holy Spirit thus appears to be more or less independent of a believer\u2019s maturity of growth in grace, except, of course, as the Lord may mark the fitness of the individual. They do not seem to spring from the life within, but are the sovereign acts of the great Giver.
\nLove Is Not a Spiritual Gift
\nThe first and greatest fruit of the Spirit is love. So marvelous is this divine love manifested in and through the life wholly yielded to the Spirit of Christ that when Paul devotes a whole chapter (1 Corinthians 13) to its praises we feel that he is practically describing the ideal Christian.
\nLet us be quite clear that such love is a fruit rather than a gift. It is distinguished from spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 14:1. It is quite unscriptural to say, \u201cI am seeking love, the greatest gift of all.\u201d Many say this, but love is not mentioned among the nine gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:8\u201311). Instead of expecting the character of 1 Corinthians 13 to be dropped suddenly and completely into the heart as a finished gift from God, we should rather see that it is the fruit of the working out of a divine principle within. It is perfected by a life of close communion with the Lord, and in no other way.
\nTaking love as described so exquisitely in 1 Corinthians 13 as being not only the first fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) but as also practically embracing all the other fruit of the Spirit, we are now in a position to note two significant facts written upon the very surface of the New Testament as to the relationship between the gifts and the fruit, as follows:
\n(a) There are nine gifts recorded in 1 Corinthians 12:8\u201311, and nine fruits recorded in Galatians 5:22, 23.
\n(b) The great chapter on love (1 Corinthians 13) is embedded between the two principal chapters dealing with spiritual gifts and is an integral part of the subject.
\nThe first fact teaches us that the gifts and the fruit are meant to balance one another; the second, that they are intimately connected with one another.
\nPaul\u2019s exhortation concerning \u201ca more excellent way\u201d in the last verse of 1 Corinthians 12 is often interpreted as though he had written, \u201cDon\u2019t trouble about spiritual gifts, only seek love.\u201d This is quite wrong; he does not write, \u201cFollow after love instead of spiritual gifts\u201d; but, \u201cFollow after love and desire spiritual gifts.\u201d It is quite unbalanced and unscriptural to ignore or neglect spiritual gifts as so many do.
\nA Call to Balance
\nWhen the apostle writes, \u201cCovet earnestly the best gifts, and yet show I unto you a more excellent way,\u201d he is not suggesting that we neglect spiritual gifts. He is giving a call to balance and a correction of spiritual values. The greatest thing of all is increasing likeness to Christ, and it is a huge mistake to think that gifts can take the place of fruit.
\nWith tremendous force he enlarges on this in the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13. He represents spiritual gifts as operating in their most brilliant capacities\u2014and then brings the whole picture to nought with a crash! The gifts of tongues, prophecy, of the word of knowledge, and of faith\u2014all equally come beneath his castigating rod. The whole argument centers in those who exercised these gifts and had not love. It is an arresting passage. It must admittedly be a passage of tremendous importance to all who claim a Pentecostal experience.
\nNote carefully that he does not for one moment question the genuineness of the gifts displayed (as so many hastily do today) and suggest that they were \u201ccounterfeits\u201d and came from demon power. They were genuine gifts of the Holy Ghost, received in the first instance directly from the Lord himself, but now being exercised by believers who had lost their sense of true spiritual values. Some may be puzzled because their only conception of spiritual gifts is that they represent nothing but a pure working of the Holy Spirit. The whole teaching of these chapters, however, is that the use of spiritual gifts, once bestowed, is open to the will of the individual (1 Corinthians 14:14, 19, 28, 30, 32). The ideal position is where there is such a conformity of the will of the believer to the will of God that all exercise of the gifts is truly \u201cin the Spirit.\u201d This is not always so; but it should be the aim of all who exercise spiritual gifts.
\nWhat is the result of exercising gifts without love? It is a twofold feature: (a) The exercise is powerless and irritating toward others; (b) The one who exercises the gift receives no benefit himself. (Note the word \u201cnothing\u201d in verses 1\u20133.) Putting it in plain language, it amounts to this: (a) A Christian who exercises spiritual gifts without a life behind them that corresponds does not make a scrap of impression for good on other people, and is only a continual source of stumbling; (b) A Christian who thinks that by the abundant exercise of spiritual gifts he can make up for lack of personal holiness is miserably deceived.
\nThe apostle then proceeds to a positive description of the excellencies of love (verses 4\u20137) and crowns all by showing that its qualities are eternal. In contrast to this, spiritual gifts (again he quotes the gifts of prophecy, tongues, and the word of knowledge\u2014verse 8) are only for this present age of seeing through \u201ca glass darkly.\u201d His aim is thus to correct their sense of spiritual values and lift their ambition to the highest possible point\u2014the moment when we shall see \u201cface to face.\u201d In view of willful perversions of this passage it is necessary to point out that he does not imply that a single one of the gifts of the Spirit will cease until then.
\nTrue doctrine is always balanced; and therefore immediately following the impassioned eloquence of the closing verses of 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle hastens to correct a possible reaction from spiritual gifts altogether. They are still to \u201cdesire spiritual gifts\u201d (14:1).
\nBut now he proceeds to detailed teaching on the principles that should govern their exercise, and love is the key. Chapter 14 is the practical application of chapter 13 to the proper use of spiritual gifts. Love will not be satisfied by a purely selfish enjoyment of any gift (verse 4). Love will have a vehement desire to see others blessed (verse 19, etc.). Love will be specially careful not to cast a stumbling block before anyone (verse 26). All this brings us back to the perfect balance between the gifts and the fruit. The Christian who has most of the fruit of the Spirit will be the Christian who will most profitably exercise the gifts of the Spirit. A spectacular display of gifts, however dazzling, will produce nothing of eternal value. It needs the vessel to be controlled by the love of God. The character of the believer exercising a spiritual gift may not affect very much its outward manifestation, but it will have a big effect upon its power for solid edification. This is of vital importance.
\nSpiritual Gifts in Unsanctified Believers
\nThis presents such a problem to some people that it must be dealt with thoroughly.
\nThe New Testament presents no problem in the matter at all; the confusion arises through some mistaken, and we fear very unscriptural, ideas which certain teachings concerning the baptism in the Holy Spirit have made current among God\u2019s people.
\n(a) There is first of all the error that receiving the baptism in the Spirit makes a child of God sinlessly perfect, or something approaching thereto. The scriptural truth is that following the baptism in the Spirit there may be a great amount of personal sanctification still needed in the believer; and this will proceed as the child of God now goes on to \u201cwalk in the Spirit\u201d (Galatians 3:2, 3, 16\u201325). It is vain to think that any \u201ccrisis\u201d or \u201cblessing\u201d or \u201cexperience\u201d can take the place of a continual \u201cwalking\u201d in the Spirit, however helpful such a crisis may often undoubtedly be.
\nIt is impossible to go into the large question of scriptural holiness here; but we may point out that the New Testament names three divine agencies for the sanctification of the believer: the Blood (Hebrews 13:12), the Word (John 17:17), and the Spirit (1 Peter 1:2). The baptism in the Holy Spirit is granted upon repentance and remission of sins; the prerequisite condition of a clean heart being received by faith in the precious Blood (Acts 2:38; 15:9). The purpose of the Baptism is power to witness (Acts 1:8) in the various ways granted by the Spirit.
\nThe baptism in the Spirit does not make a believer sinlessly perfect, and the New Testament does not make spiritual gifts a sign of holiness. They are a sign that the Sanctifier has come; but His work may be proceeding very slowly, especially if the Word is not being obeyed. Let us keep very clear here.
\n(b) The other mistaken idea that brings unnecessary confusion and stumbling to some people\u2019s minds is the idea that the Holy Spirit will never manifest himself except through a perfect channel.
\nWe are amazed how saints can hold such an idea with an open Bible before them. In the Old Testament there are cases like Jephthah (Judges 11:29), Samson (Judges 15:14), or Saul\u2014all of whom were grossly imperfect in sanctification. In the New Testament one is faced on every hand by the fact of the Lord\u2019s working with and through most imperfect men and women; even among the apostolic band itself, and that after Pentecost. The First Epistle to the Corinthians has to deal with divisions, immorality, disorders, heresies, and so on, and yet the Holy Spirit was manifesting himself through these very believers in a way that justified Paul in writing that they came \u201cbehind in no gift, waiting for the coming of the Lord\u201d (1:7). The plain fact is beyond contradiction. What an answer to those who can accept no testimony to possessing genuine spiritual gifts whenever they find imperfection! We make no excuse for the imperfections; we have already written enough to prove how seriously it is to be regarded in those who exercise gifts of the Spirit. But we are amazed at the difficulties of some people who have an open Bible before them.
\nThey all arise from these twin mistaken ideas that the baptism in the Holy Spirit makes believers sinlessly perfect; and that an exercise of the gifts of the Spirit is a proof of such perfection. May God bring us back to our Bibles!
\nThe balanced words of Conybeare and Howson (Life and Epistles of St. Paul, chapter 13) are well worth quoting in conclusion: \u201cIt was a pleasing dream which represented the primitive church as a society of angels; and it is not without a struggle that we bring ourselves to open our eyes and behold the reality.\u2026 In the very lifetime of the apostles, no less than now, \u2026 miracles did not convert; inspiration did not sanctify; then, as now, imperfection and evil clung to its members, and clogged the energies of the Kingdom of God.\u201d The lesson which both friends and opponents of Pentecostal blessings need to learn from the pages of the New Testament is that inspiration does not sanctify. But inspiration was then and is now none the less precious and real.
\nThe vision before us is of a Church glorious with every one of the nine gifts and all the nine fruits of the Spirit, presented in balanced proportion to the glory of the Redeemer.
\nIt is as impossible as it is unscriptural to conceive of any revival continuing in the power of the Holy Spirit that welcomes Him only as the Inspirer of word or deed, and not of personal holiness also. To \u201cgrieve\u201d the Spirit of God by lack of sanctification (Ephesians 4:30) must inevitably end in \u201cquenching\u201d the Spirit of God in His manifestation also (1 Thessalonians 5:19). The divinely balanced plan revealed in the New Testament is where the Holy Spirit is alike the Source of fruit and gift; and for both blessed phases of our redemption He is welcomed and obeyed.
\n11
\nThe Bestowal of Spiritual Gifts
\nIt is very proper that we should consider the principles governing the bestowal and manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit in view of the strong commandment contained in 1 Corinthians 14:1: \u201cFollow after love, and [literally] desire earnestly spiritual gifts.\u201d Added to this are the exhortations to pray for the power to interpret if we speak in an unknown tongue; and to covet to prophesy (verses 13, 39).
\nSuch passages make it clear that we are expected to take up a more definite attitude in the matter than simply waiting for some moving of the Spirit while our own wills are entirely inactive and our own desires merely nebulous. We are justified in \u201cseeking.\u201d At the same time we need to move on lines that are safeguarded by a clear recognition of scriptural principles and a balanced conception of the various sides of truth involved.
\nThe Use of the Word Gift
\nThe actual word gift does not occur in the original, either in 1 Corinthians 12:1 or in 1 Corinthians 14:1. These verses simply speak of \u201cspirituals.\u201d That is to say, these passages are referring to features in the worship and activity of the church that are peculiarly in the spiritual realm. Such a term can plainly cover a wide field and need not necessarily be confined to the nine particular manifestations mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8\u201310.
\nThe translators have quite legitimately added the word \u201cgifts\u201d however, because the context makes it perfectly plain that this is the true thought. Moreover the word \u201cgifts\u201d (charismata) is actually used in 1 Corinthians 12:4, 9, 31. Finally, to confirm the propriety of the expression \u201cspiritual gifts,\u201d it is only necessary to notice that the ordinary word for giving anything to another (didomi) is used in 1 Corinthians 12:7, 8. Such passages as Romans 12:6; Ephesians 4:11, and especially Paul\u2019s exhortations to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:14 and 2 Timothy 1:6), place the matter beyond question. The subject is correctly \u201cspiritual gifts.\u201d
\nThe word \u201cgift\u201d is from the same Greek root as \u201cgrace\u201d\u2014charis. We are all familiar with the splendid old definition of grace as \u201cfree, unmerited favor.\u201d \u201cGrace; favor; kindness,\u201d says the lexicon. It is the same word in the \u201cgift of eternal life\u201d (Romans 6:23). The slightest thought of personal merit in the recipient, the faintest suggestion that the blessing can be purchased through any bargain made by the seeker, is completely ruled out.
\nThe application of this sweet gospel truth to the gifts of the Spirit makes them glow with a tender and sacredly familiar beauty to all who have been to Calvary. Even in this mysterious realm of the \u201cspirituals\u201d we are, after all, dealing with matters subject to the common laws of the household of faith.
\nAs gifts they have nevertheless a special beauty all their own. They are as love tokens to the betrothed bride of Christ; typified, many of us have felt, in those presents given by Eliezer to Rebekah long ago (Genesis 24:53). No wonder that the subject has become deeply sacred to those whose understanding has been enlightened to perceive the \u201criches of His grace\u201d in these things.
\nA Perverted Gift-Consciousness
\nNothing more surely defeats the purpose of any love gift than for the recipient of it to put the gift before the giver. Yet such a danger is decidedly real where spiritual gifts are concerned. There can easily arise a morbid \u201cgift-consciousness\u201d that dwells upon either the real or the fancied possession of some spiritual gift far more than upon the life of fellowship with the Giver. There have been believers who have become so taken up with gifts and offices that the whole subject has become nauseous. Only the divine Giver can satisfy the soul\u2014never just His gifts.
\nThe sense of the personal possession of some spiritual gift needs to be molded by a full-orbed conception of the subject. It is to be remembered that the particular manifestation given to the individual is only bestowed because that one is a member of the \u201cwhole body\u201d; this is the great theme of 1 Corinthians 12. All is related to the Church as the \u201cbody.\u201d The edification of the Body is the true aim (14:12). It is the Body that judges with regard to the gift (verse 29). The ultimate thought is that spiritual gifts are in the Church rather than in the individual.
\nIn that supreme passage of Scripture on this subject, 1 Corinthians 12:7\u201311, there is nothing to contradict the thought that the Lord can manifest any one of these diverse gifts through any member of the Body, any time, anywhere. Unless we recognize this side of the truth, as well as the side of individual possession and responsibility, we shall limit the operation of the gifts of the Spirit to the personal presence on any particular occasion of certain gifted members of the Body. For example, the writer knew of an assembly where the absurd position was taken up that there must be no speaking with tongues unless the \u201cofficial interpreter\u201d (?) happened to be present! Just as though the Lord of glory could not use any other persons.
\nThe pushing of any truth to an extreme always brings us into error. It is good to realize a personal responsibility where the gifts of the Spirit are concerned; it is good for the church to recognize that God has definitely \u201cset\u201d ministries in the body; but it is an entirely mistaken position of miserable bondage to so emphasize the element of personal gift-consciousness that we cease to revel in the possibility of a delightfully free and unexpected manifestation of the Spirit through any believer in the assembly.
\nWhen the Holy Spirit is in full control of a meeting, it may be likened to an organist manipulating the stops of a perfectly balanced organ, and bringing out the sweetest, fullest music in a rich variety of tone and color. What the varied stops are to the organist, so are the different gifts to the Holy Spirit; \u201call these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit.\u201d
\n\u201cWorkers Together With God\u201d
\nYet even this truth can be pushed into error if we interpret it as meaning that the Spirit \u201cworks\u201d the gifts in that mechanical sense involved in the imperfect illustration we have just used of the organist playing the organ. This mistake has led some into false ideas that have finally ended in either fanaticism or sterility. God never requires His sons to become mere \u201cmediums\u201d in the spiritistic sense. They are to be \u201cvessels\u201d for the Master to use, but always with their own personality entirely conscious and fully active in will and thought and feeling, Paul\u2019s entire approach to the subject of spiritual gifts corrects this false idea that in their exercise the believer is reduced to a robot. If this were the correct idea, then his instructions were wide of the mark. He should (absurd thought!) have sought to correct the Holy Spirit, rather than the Corinthians.
\nThe Greek word for \u201cworketh\u201d in 1 Corinthians 12:11 carries the literal meaning of \u201cto energize.\u201d It is the Holy Spirit supplying the supernatural power that becomes manifest through the gift. Our illustration of the organ may help us again if we this time keep closer to the literal meaning of \u201cspirit\u201d (pneuma) and regard the Holy Spirit as the \u201cwind\u201d in the organ, without which the cleverest manipulation of the stops and the keys will not produce one single note of music.
\nIf the believer feels the mighty yet tender energy of the Holy Spirit moving within him and then he \u201cquenches\u201d the Spirit\u2014as some were evidently in danger of doing\u2014(1 Thessalonians 5:19), the manifestation that the Lord intended can be hindered. On the other hand, if the believer yields to the Spirit by faith and obedience, there will come forth all the beauty and power of inspired word and deed. That is the true goal where gifts of the Spirit are concerned.
\nIt goes without saying that any purely natural attempt to produce an apparent working of a spiritual gift without the Holy Spirit energizing the operation must reduce the whole matter to the depth of bathos where these holy things are concerned. Yet to such absurdities can sincere but misguided people lend themselves!
\nSeeing that there are these two sides to this delightful subject of the bestowal and operation of spiritual gifts, the divine and the human, we do well to consider them separately.
\nGod\u2019s Side of the Question
\nIn the bestowal of spiritual gifts God is absolutely sovereign. \u201cAs He will\u201d expresses this fact unmistakably (1 Corinthians 12:11); note also the following phrases: \u201cAs it hath pleased Him\u201d (verse 18), and \u201cGod hath set\u201d (verse 28).
\nThere should therefore be no room whatever for jealousy where spiritual gifts are concerned: they differ \u201caccording to the grace given to us\u201d (Romans 12:6), and those who possess the best and most conspicuous should not think of themselves more highly than they ought to think, but \u201cthink soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man\u201d (verse 3). His alone is the glory.
\nThere is much room, however, for reverence; for over the manifestation of every true gift of the Spirit may be truly written, \u201cThis is the finger of God.\u201d And the natural weakness and imperfection of the vessel only makes the sovereign grace of the Giver shine out the more clearly.
\nIn connection with the divine sovereignty, we must now notice a striking arrangement whereby men can become instruments by which that sovereignty expresses itself. This is best seen in the case of Timothy, to whose particular spiritual gift Paul twice refers as though it had been definitely imparted by the laying on of hands (1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6). The solemn occasion Timothy is reminded of is when the elders unitedly laid hands upon him, with Paul apparently among them, and most likely at his setting apart for the work of the ministry before they left Lystra (Acts 16). It appears that one of the elders at the same time had a prophecy by the Holy Spirit indicating the particular gift graciously bestowed upon the young man.
\nThis does not in any wise contradict the sovereignty of God in bestowing spiritual gifts; it is only consistent with the beautiful revelation of the whole of the Bible that the Almighty condescends to work through, and by the cooperation of, human channels. Never make the mistake that by the laying on of hands men have it in their own power and will to bestow any spiritual gift. This beautiful and appropriate ordinance is powerful only as those who exercise it are in the will of God and full of the Holy Ghost. It should be remembered, however, that this is a perfectly scriptural ordinance, and we do quite well to submit to it from recognized godly brethren when seeking spiritual gifts or blessings. We may safely depend on the Lord\u2019s honoring His own appointed methods.
\nMan\u2019s Side of the Question
\nWe have seen that in bestowing spiritual gifts, God is sovereign. That sovereignty may express itself by the direct bestowal of the gifts without any human intervention, or by their bestowal through the laying on of hands.
\nThe question now arises as to whether there is any action or attitude on man\u2019s part indicated in the Scriptures by which the divine purpose can be helped or hindered. Consideration should be given to surrender, prayer, and faith.
\nSurrender
\nBy this we mean that absolute submission to the will of God which is implied in the sovereignty of the words \u201cas He will.\u201d There should be a perfect willingness to receive whatsoever gift the Lord may desire me to have. It is very natural, for instance, to desire the gift of healing; and we have frequently met believers who are absolutely unwilling to have the gift of tongues. But the fundamental attitude must be one of complete submission. Only God knows the gift each believer is best able to exercise for the glory of His name; and only the Lord knows the gift best fitted to the spiritual condition of each of His children. It is easily possible to see that unless the possession of certain gifts is balanced by a corresponding degree of deep sanctification the result can only be disaster, both for the individual and for the church. On the other hand, the very exercise of certain gifts may exert a sanctifying influence on the character; thus healings may produce compassion, discerning of spirits may stir up watchfulness, or speaking with tongues may prove very humbling to intellectual pride.
\nPrayer
\nThe sovereignty of God never takes away the place and power of prayer; and concerning spiritual gifts the believer is strongly exhorted to pray for them. A strong desire for certain gifts is perfectly right, provided it be coupled with submission.
\nIndeed such a desire is urged in those intense words\u2014\u201cearnestly desire\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:1) or \u201cbe earnestly ambitious.\u201d Nothing could be stronger than this. \u201cSet your heart on the prophetic gifts,\u201d he says (1 Corinthians 14:39, Moffatt); \u201cA man who speaks in a tongue must pray for the gift of interpreting it\u201d (verse 13, Moffatt).
\nAll these expressions are the very opposite of an attitude of sitting down with folded hands and waiting in a vague way for whatever may come along. Working in conjunction with divine Sovereignty there must also be real and deep desire. Let us get away from that mistaken refusal of a really sanctified ambition in the Christian life; it is planted within the soul by divine grace. God never mocks the true heart; the very desire He bestows is the divine promise that sometime, somehow, somewhere He will satisfy to the full.
\nFaith
\nThis is possibly the least understood of all human conditions for receiving and particularly for exercising spiritual gifts. After considerable experience we say that probably more people are hindered from the
\nexercise of spiritual gifts by unbelief than by anything else we could name.
\nYet notice how distinctly in Romans 12:3\u20136 Paul says that the use of a gift comes from the measure of faith, and will be according to the proportion of that faith. The Lord has made my faith the condition in all things of the flow of divine life and power through me. Nothing so absolutely unfits the vessel for the Master\u2019s use as unbelief. It is not prayer, but the \u201cprayer of faith\u201d that saves the sick (James 5). There is no incident which more perfectly illustrates the application of this principle to spiritual gifts than Peter walking on the water (Matthew 14:28\u201330). With eyes upon Jesus he went steadily forward, but with eyes looking around he began to sink. So it is with spiritual gifts: with the eyes of the spirit upon the Lord, there will be free exercise; but with eyes looking around, speedy failure.
\nThere is a mistaken idea quite prevalent that in the exercise of a spiritual gift the believer is practically forced by the Holy Spirit, almost in spite of the human will. This is never so when God is the source of inspiration to either utterance or action. He always leaves the freedom of the human will entirely unimpaired. The manifestation of the Spirit can be \u201cquenched\u201d; on the other hand the impulses of the Holy Spirit can be yielded to so readily and intelligently that there can be an instant and beautiful exercise of any spiritual gift. This should be our aim, and it reveals \u201cGod and man in oneness blending,\u201d not the driving of a slave by his master.
\nSpiritual Gifts That Lie Dormant
\nA possibility that always needs reckoning with concerning spiritual gifts is that they may be genuinely in the believer, and yet be lying dormant and un-manifested.
\nThis was plainly the danger with Timothy. He had to be exhorted \u201cnot to neglect\u201d the gift that was in him (1 Timothy 4:14); and the second injunction is still more positive\u2014he was to \u201cstir up,\u201d or \u201ckindle up,\u201d this gift (2 Timothy 1:6).
\nThese passages suggest at once the thought that many believers do not need to pray for the bestowal of spiritual gifts half so much as they need to attend to the exercise of those they already possess. In such a case it is no use trying to throw the responsibility on the Lord as though He had never given or else had withdrawn the gift. The believer himself is responsible for stirring up his gift as the Holy Spirit moves upon him and seeks to bring the sluggish manifestation of His presence into operation once more. How firmly Paul\u2019s inspired advice to Timothy insists on the human side of responsibility for the exercise of the Spirit\u2019s gifts. It is almost as though God had made himself sovereign in the bestowal of the gifts and then left man sovereign as to their free and profitable exercise. The whole teaching of 1 Corinthians 14 implies the same principle.
\nIf the believer is convicted that he is not in perfect liberty regarding the exercise of gifts once bestowed, then the obvious remedy is repentance concerning whatever may have hindered; it must include a placing of ourselves as far as possible in the flow of the Spirit and a definite exercise of the will to stir up the neglected gifts. Failure to do this means personal loss, loss to the church, and loss thereby to the glory of God.
\nNothing is of more vital importance concerning the reestablishing of New Testament Christianity than the full return of every one of the supernatural gifts of the Holy Ghost. Their partial, instead of complete, restoration is a constant source of weakness. The Church should constantly pray and be \u201cearnestly ambitious\u201d therefore that each gift may be found in active operation, and gifts already bestowed should be jealously maintained in full exercise. No theoretical or doctrinal belief without active operation will suffice here. We must have the gifts.
\nThank God that the divine sovereignty also expresses the divine willingness. The New Testament gives us ample ground to expect that the Lord is still ready to bestow all the gifts of His Spirit as at the beginning, dividing to every man severally as He will. \u201cLord, we believe!\u201d
\n12
\nAbuses: Their Cause and Cure
\nIt is a pleasant dream held by some people that all exercise of the gifts of the Spirit is necessarily perfect and beyond abuse or mistake.
\nSuch an idea can come only from a very careless reading of the New Testament. Unfortunately it may have serious results. The prejudiced label the slightest error or imperfection they may run up against as a sure sign of a counterfeit which justifies them in condemning the whole. In those who delight in the gifts of the Spirit it places them beyond the reach of teaching and correction\u2014they regard their experience on this line as infallible.
\nThe New Testament Records Imperfection
\nNow nothing can be more certain than that the New Testament reveals that the exercise of spiritual gifts can be imperfect. Paul\u2019s treatment of the subject in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 arises solely out of the Corinthian assembly using certain gifts of the Holy Spirit wrongfully.
\nNote particularly that he never questions the genuineness of their gifts. There is not one single line in which he suggests (as so many hastily do today) that they had counterfeit gifts inspired by deceiving spirits. All through these three chapters he proceeds on the assumption that they had right gifts, but used them wrongly. The fact that this is not only possible but actually occurred in the Early Church is thus established beyond argument.
\nWhat are the reasons for these abuses? They are admittedly not in the Spirit of God. Neither are they in the nature of the gifts themselves, for coming directly from the Lord they would necessarily share His perfection. We are shut in to the obvious fact, which is exactly what Scripture teaches, that the imperfections in their exercise spring from the \u201cearthen vessels\u201d through whom the manifestation flows.
\nThere is another unscriptural and mischievous error held by certain earnest people that the baptism in the Holy Ghost makes the believer sinlessly perfect\u2014or ought to, and that those especially who possess and exercise any of the gifts of the Spirit can do so only by virtue of being absolutely sanctified. The blunt facts of the New Testament are that some very imperfect people possessed and exercised some wonderful and genuine gifts of the Holy Spirit. We are afraid that even the apostles themselves could be taken as examples of this point.
\nNow holiness is essential to an edifying exercise of any spiritual gift, and we are placing no premium on an unsanctified character; but what we are seeking to establish is that it is possible for genuine gifts of the Spirit to be wrongly used through the imperfection of the believer to whom they have been given.
\nSome Particular Abuses Noted
\nIt will be necessary to get down to principles; but first\u2014what were some of the specific abuses at Corinth?
\nFirst of all, and right at the surface, there was too much speaking with tongues in the public meetings (1 Corinthians 14:23, 27). Second, there was speaking with tongues in the assembly without interpretation (verses 5, 9). Third, it would appear that those who exercised the gift of prophecy were claiming that their inspiration was beyond criticism, and moreover that it placed them beyond self-control and obedience to government.
\nPaul met these particular abuses by giving particular commandments. Thus speaking with tongues was to be limited to two or at the most three at any one meeting of the assembly (verse 27); audible speaking with tongues in public was ruled completely out of order unless there was interpretation, and such interpretation was to proceed on orderly lines (verses 27, 28); prophets were sternly reminded that their utterances could and should be \u201cjudged\u201d by the others, and that their inspiration in no wise robbed them of self-control or gave them any excuse to despise government (verses 29\u201332).
\nIt must not be supposed that these are the only gifts of the Spirit liable to abuse, or even that these are the only abuses these particular gifts are capable of. Thus there is a strong indication that the assembly at Thessalonica erred in the opposite extreme of suppressing and despising inspired utterances (1 Thessalonians 5:19\u201321). There are also hints that the word of knowledge could be made ineffective by the believer who exercised it becoming puffed up (1 Corinthians 8:1; 13:2); and in the same passage we learn that even the gift of faith could amount to \u201cnothing\u201d in practical result through lack of love. It does not take much imagination to realize how the gifts of healing, and indeed any gift of the Spirit, could be easily spoiled and fail to achieve its divine purpose.
\nA Golden Rule and a Golden Principle
\nThere is a golden rule governing the right exercise of spiritual gifts; it is found in 1 Corinthians 14:26, \u201cLet all things be done unto edifying.\u201d And there is a golden principle which alone can make them really profitable, the principle of love\u2014enunciated so explicitly in 1 Corinthians 13, a chapter written especially in connection with spiritual gifts.
\nObservance of this rule and principle would cure practically every misuse of the gifts of the Spirit. Thus those people in Corinth would never have spoken in tongues more than was fitting or without interpretation in the assembly if their eyes had been only on the greatest possible benefit for the greatest possible number. It is true, as Paul admits, that they were edifying themselves (verse 4); but love will never be satisfied unless somebody else is sharing the edification (verse 17); and still more, love will never edify itself at the expense of others (verse 24).
\nWhile traveling on an ocean liner, I noticed that some people played the piano in the lounge at any time, just to suit their own pleasure and without regard to the wishes or comforts of others. But other players wished to play always with an eye to the fitness of the occasion and the pleasure of everybody concerned.
\nLikewise, a great many abuses of spiritual gifts spring from mere selfishness, and this applies perhaps especially to the gift of tongues. In public and assembly meetings the one who has a gift must always remember, with a practical love, the presence of other people; and he must always have an eye to the effect, helpful or otherwise, the exercise of his gift will have upon them. He cannot act the same as when alone with God.
\nIt is this consideration which lies at the root of the final commandment of the apostle: \u201cLet all things be done decently and in order\u201d (verse 40); not the order of a cemetery, but the order of a corporate life performing all its functions with ease and effectiveness to all concerned.
\nInspiration Never Robs of Self-Control
\nThe mistake that some of the prophets at Corinth made really went far deeper than the mistakes of those who spoke with tongues. And the mistake was capable of far more serious results; indeed, it lies at the root of the errors which have wrecked most inspirational movements.
\nWithout repeating what we have referred to before, the heart of this error is the idea that utterances through spiritual gifts are of the same infallible nature as the Scriptures.
\nLeaving this on one side for the moment, however, we especially notice another phase of this mistaken idea: namely, that when speaking by the Spirit of God they had lost self-control and were not responsible for their actions, and that they therefore could not come under the government of the assembly. Now this is a great mistake. Demons may drive along the unfortunate persons they possess in a frenzy or a stupor; but the Holy Spirit will never operate through a believer except along the line of his willing, active, and intelligent cooperation.
\nPaul necessarily takes this for granted in 1 Corinthians 14. What would be the use of giving directions to people to \u201ckeep silence\u201d (verse 28) and to \u201chold their peace\u201d (verse 30) if the Holy Spirit really rendered them incapable of self-control? What is the use of the apostle talking about a preference in the way he shall address them (verse 19) if the Spirit of God left him no choice in the matter?
\nSo many people hide behind a mistaken plea that they \u201cwere moved by the Spirit,\u201d and \u201ccould not help themselves,\u201d when asked to give an account for disorderly behavior concerning spiritual gifts. All such excuses are utterly without weight and only betray a deep lack of understanding in the individual who makes them.
\nThe Holy Spirit Does Not Work Against Himself
\nIt is absurd to suggest that God will work against himself, and that the Spirit of God will first of all inspire a commandment or order and then move believers to disorder!
\nThe great work of the Holy Spirit should be carefully studied, and then it will be seen that to the believer this will be his sanctification by the revelation of Christ; and that to the unbeliever it will be his conviction by the revelation of Christ.
\nThe Spirit of God will not, therefore, work against himself by an operation of gifts that draws attention to the one who is exercising them rather than to the Lord; neither will He, generally speaking, operate gifts in a way that will provoke to either fear, disgust, or distraction\u2014especially in dealing with an unbeliever who is coming under conviction. Those who exercise spiritual gifts should be more than ordinarily careful that they are really moved by the Spirit of God when unbelievers are present.
\nNeither will the Holy Spirit work against himself in the government of an assembly. If the government of a meeting is in the hands of men called and equipped by the Lord (and ideally all meetings should be), then He will make known His mind and will through the offices of His own appointment, and will never move to a spiritual anarchy or rebellion, however attractive such may be to restless spirits. God will respect an office of His own \u201csetting\u201d in the church; however, men may sometimes seek to set it aside; and the man in the office is always to be respected for the sake of the office, even though he is bound at times to show the imperfections consequent to all that is human.
\nWe make no plea for carnal ordinances of men seeking to control the things of the Spirit; though even then graciousness and courtesy will usually mark the behavior of the man really controlled by the Spirit of God, and he will withdraw (like Paul from the synagogue of old) if the testimony of the Spirit is being purposely quenched. Exhibitions of rudeness and fanaticism never do the cause of truth any service and must not be confused with a quiet, courageous declaration when the occasion demands it of that which is surely believed.
\nThe Real Cure for Abuses of Spiritual Gifts
\nThis can be nothing else but growth in grace. We are reminded of a notice we once saw in the gardens of a fashionable watering place in the south of England: \u201cLadies and gentlemen will not and others must not pluck the flowers.\u201d The Lord wants us all to be spiritual \u201cladies and gentlemen.\u201d
\nThere may be a stage, first of all, where the believer is like a child and has to learn the right exercise of spiritual gifts by implicit obedience to government, whether the reason is always understood or not. But if there is a true spiritual growth this should quickly become unnecessary\u2014the gifts will be exercised rightly, almost by instinct, as it were.
\nPaul puts the matter this way: \u201cBrethren, be not children in understanding: \u2026 in understanding [concerning spiritual gifts] be men\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:20). \u201cI would not have you ignorant\u201d (1 Corinthians 12:1). So that if the first essential for the right exercise of any spiritual gift is a heart that is right because it is controlled by divine love, then the second essential is a mind that understands because it is instructed by divine light.
\nYet the \u201cunderstanding\u201d of spiritual gifts and their right use which Paul urges so strongly is based, after all, upon what we may justly call \u201csanctified common sense,\u201d to judge from his blunt language about being called \u201cmad\u201d (14:23) and his homely illustrations from musical instruments, etc. (verses 7\u201311). The understanding of the correct use of even such a mysterious gift as tongues does not apparently demand any special revelation nor even any particularly painstaking study of the Scriptures\u2014but merely the application of ordinary principles of expediency and decency! To such simplicity is the question finally reduced.
\nIn conclusion we must remember that the directions given to the assembly at Corinth, while divinely intended for the Church of all ages, were originally called for because these things were out of the divine order locally. Happily they do not represent the normal condition of a spiritually healthy assembly or believer.
\nThe human spirit is the root of the trouble, when it becomes self-assertive rather than self-effacing. The only cure is at the Cross and on the Cross.
\nThe perfect exercise of a spiritual gift is achieved when the Holy Spirit has unhindered control of spirit, soul, and body of the believer. Then the child of God can truly sing: \u201cMy Freedom Is Thy Grand Control.\u201d Men, seeing the outward result, will say rightly that such a one is \u201cfull of the Holy Ghost.\u201d Under such circumstances anything may happen!
\n13
\nSome Difficulties Considered
\nIn this study we purpose to get right down to a candid consideration of some of the special questions and difficulties which experience has taught us occur where the Lord\u2019s people are enjoying spiritual gifts in operation.
\nThose who read must be tolerant. There may be legitimate differences of opinion. We only seek to deal with these things according to the measure of the light God has vouchsafed to us. One thing we can assure our readers of, we shall answer every question as far as possible by the Scriptures, and all who honor the authority of the Word of God will accept its verdict. To set aside the testimony of the Bible for even the most plausible theories we may invent is bound to end in loss and disaster. There is no real bondage in obedience to the Scriptures; and there is no real liberty in casting them aside. Let universal Christian experience, and the history of the Church, give an abundant and convincing witness to the truth of such a statement. \u201cTo the Word and to the testimony.\u201d
\nMost practical difficulties concerning the exercise of spiritual gifts center in the gifts of prophecy, tongues, and interpretation of tongues; for here we are on such utterly strange ground to the majority of believers today. It is with regret that we are compelled to make such an obvious admission. May God hasten the day when we are as familiar with these things as the Christians of the first century!
\nSome of the most frequent questions we find asked are as follows:
\n1. \u201cDo all speak with tongues?\u201d (1 Corinthians 12:30). How do you reconcile this statement with the teaching that everyone should speak with tongues on receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit?
\nPaul is here dealing with spiritual gifts in the regular life and ministry of the church. He does not have in view at all the experience of believers when being baptized in the Holy Spirit. The instances on that line recorded in the Book of Acts (chapters 2; 10; 19) plainly imply beyond possible contradiction that all present spoke with tongues when the Spirit fell upon them. Note especially the use of the word \u201call\u201d in Acts 2:4 and 10:44. There is no definite statement in Acts 8, but there is every indication that the experience there was exactly parallel to the three other instances just noted.
\nBut in 1 Corinthians 12:14 the apostle is dealing with the subsequent experience of those who had received the Spirit; and in this connection it is perfectly clear that the permanent gifts bestowed upon the members of Christ\u2019s body are varied in character. And so the apostle rightly asks, \u201cAre all teachers?\u2026 Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?\u201d
\nIt is a wrong application of the Word of God to connect Paul\u2019s obvious remark concerning one of the regular gifts of the Spirit with the divinely appointed initial evidence of the baptism in the Spirit. The two subjects are distinct, and should never be confused. It is a pity some fine teachers have not seen and appreciated this important point.
\n2. \u201cTwo or at the most three\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:27). Does this refer to the number of speakers allowed, the number of utterances, or the number of sections permissible in one consecutive message given through the gift of tongues?
\nThe context settles the question that this plainly refers to the number of speakers allowed in one meeting. In the concluding part of the verse it says, \u201cLet one interpret\u201d (obviously one person); and in verse 29 it says, \u201cLet the prophets speak two or three\u201d (obviously two or three persons). So it is perfectly clear that the \u201ctwo, or at the most three, and that by course\u201d also refers to persons; otherwise the continued sense of the passage is hopelessly jumbled up.
\nSuch an interpretation of this passage is also in keeping with the general trend of the whole chapter, which is plainly that the apostle does not favor a very great amount of speaking with tongues in public meetings of an assembly. We are afraid that any other interpretation, however able and sincere, has usually risen from our trying to excuse a superabundance of utterances in tongues in the meetings.
\nIt is safer to be strictly scriptural; though we admit occasions where the limit of three messages in tongues has been exceeded and the Holy Spirit has undeniably been upon the gathering in power and blessing. A possible explanation is that the Lord is intentionally emphasizing this particular manifestation of His Spirit in these last days (1 Corinthians 14:21). Perhaps another reason is that many of the utterances coming by the gift of tongues should really\u2014and preferably\u2014come by the gift of prophecy, to which the apostle places no limit (1 Corinthians 14:31). The inspiration of the utterances is genuinely from the Lord, but the wrong gift is used to give it forth. Paul clearly recognizes the possibility of choosing which gift he shall exercise on a particular occasion (1 Corinthians 14:19). The saints would do well to heed the injunction of verse 39 that they are to \u201ccovet to prophesy.\u201d
\nWe do not think it necessary to come under a hard and fast bondage to the literal rule of \u201cat the most three\u201d; but on the other hand we consider it dangerous to wander very far away from the clearly taught principles of this chapter. It is always safer to be scriptural.
\n3. Is it right to interrupt a preacher by speaking in tongues?
\nThere are some Pentecostal preachers who intersperse their sermons by personal utterances in tongues which they interpret as they go along with great power and unction. This is quite scriptural (1 Corinthians 14:5), and we have often seen it greatly blessed of God. As a matter of fact, such preachers usually minister along the line of a continual inspiration as they speak, and a very large part of their preaching is really an exercise of the gift of prophecy.
\nWe can also quite understand and appreciate interruptions to such a ministry from among the congregation (on the line of 1 Corinthians 14:30); but, except on rare occasions, they are out of place when ministry is being given along the line of the word of wisdom or the word of knowledge. The tendency of interrupting a preacher by speaking in tongues is to break the flow of his message, to the hindrance of both himself and his hearers.
\nThe reason why Spirit-filled saints want to speak in tongues when a preacher is giving forth truth under the anointing of the Spirit is because they feel a \u201cwitness\u201d to the Word, Such a witness does not necessarily mean, however, that the Lord wants them to interrupt. Far from it. They have a mistaken fear that if they keep quiet they are quenching the Spirit; but if only they would let the unction which they feel upon them be thrown into maintaining the spiritual power and sense of the presence of God in the meeting, they would probably be furthering far more the purpose of God. The steam in the locomotive is not there principally for blowing the whistle\u2014but for making it go! \u201cLet all things be done decently and in order\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:40) seems to apply here; and it cannot be regarded as general in accordance with such a rule to keep on interrupting a man who has a real Holy Ghost message to deliver. We have noticed that usually, if interpretation is given, it is only something that the preacher would have almost certainly said in the ordinary course of his sermon, and there is no ground for the idea sometimes held that utterances by the gift of tongues possess a fuller degree of inspiration than those by other spiritual gifts. Occasionally they may be more impressive; and this constitutes the principal reason why at times they are more perfectly in divine order.
\nThe only New Testament occasion when a preacher was interrupted by speaking in tongues was when Peter was speaking in the home of Cornelius (Acts 10:44); and it should be particularly noted that this was not an exercise of the gift in the Church by mature believers but was simply the sign of the Holy Spirit falling upon his hearers\u2014who then began to speak with tongues for the first time in their experience. On the Day of Pentecost all speaking with tongues ceased before Peter began to preach his sermon, and there is no indication that he was interrupted.
\nIn large public meetings, especially those devoted to evangelistic purposes, we consider that all exercise of spiritual gifts is quite properly restricted to \u201cproved\u201d individuals. The plain inference of 1 Corinthians 14 is that more than ordinary care should be exercised when unbelievers are present.
\n4. Is it right to speak in tongues in an open-air meeting?
\n\u201cTongues are for a sign \u2026 to them that believe not\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:22); and there have been many authentic cases where utterances in tongues in open-air meetings have produced wonderful results through the language spoken being recognized by a bystander. We also have reliable accounts of the power being supernaturally given to suddenly preach in a tongue up to then unknown. Such experiences, however, appear to come under the heading of \u201cworking of miracles\u201d rather than \u201cdiversities of tongues.\u201d
\nThere is not one single instance, or even indication, in the New Testament of the gift of tongues being used for preaching. On the Day of Pentecost the speaking with tongues was within the Upper Room, and it ceased when the public preaching began (Acts 2:14). All the details of the New Testament regarding the gift of tongues go to prove that it had two proper spheres: (a) for private communion with God (1 Corinthians 14:2); and (b) for edification of the church when interpreted (verse 5).
\nIt would therefore appear that except on those occasions when the gift is used by the Spirit as a \u201csign\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:22), it is out of place in open-air or evangelistic meetings. Reason certainly concurs with such a view.
\n5. Is it right to pray in tongues in a meeting?
\nIf by this is meant prolonged prayer in an unknown tongue in a public meeting, Scripture is so clear that we can at once say an emphatic, \u201cNo.\u201d (See 1 Corinthians 14:14\u201317.)
\nThis would hardly apply, however, to a sudden ejaculation that springs from an overflowing fullness of the spirit that momentarily surpasses the power of ordinary expression. In small semiprivate gatherings for prayer such a rule would not necessarily apply either; the apostle has in view those meetings where the \u201cunlearned\u201d are present.
\n6. How should abuse of spiritual gifts be dealt with?
\nBy general teaching upon the subject in the assembly (1 Corinthians 12:1); by strictly private conversation with offenders in the first instance; by prayer and the leader of the assembly keeping in such living touch with God that an atmosphere of victory is continually maintained; by an exemplary use of the gifts by those who are looked up to as leaders.
\nPublic rebuke should only be a last resource, and that in an emergency. The utmost tact should be observed. The Holy Spirit is easily grieved and quenched, and a whole assembly or convention can quickly be brought into cast iron bondage by some attempted correction of the exercise of spiritual gifts that is not absolutely in the Spirit. These matters need a most skillful and wise handling by men of experience in such matters. Better a little disorder and the Lord working, than the apparent \u201corder\u201d of the cemetery and of death!
\n7. Should the interpretation exactly resemble the utterance in tongues?
\nCertainly it should as a general rule. We believe that the gift of interpretation of tongues is real and quite capable of being tested by anybody who might happen to have a naturally acquired knowledge of the tongue spoken.
\nSome native dialects have very little variety of sounds, however, especially to one ignorant of them. Occasionally interpretation into a language like English must necessarily be fuller in sound than the original tongue spoken.
\nIt must always be remembered that interpretation of tongues is a spiritual gift and does not provide an exactly parallel interpretation from one language to another. The revelation may be given more perfectly to the interpreter than to the one who speaks in tongues; in which case the utterance may well be much fuller and richer in every way, and also longer.
\n8. Should I seek guidance through the gift of prophecy?
\nTo do this is to take a backward step into the Old Testament dispensation. There is not one single instance in the whole of the New Testament where either individuals or churches sought guidance or a revelation of God\u2019s will through a prophet or the gift of prophecy. This is very convincing.
\nThere may come occasional instances where the Lord sovereignly chooses to give some revelation as to the future, or as to His mind, in that way (for example, see Acts 11:28; 21:11); but these give absolutely no justification for building up a system of either individuals or churches receiving regular guidance through prophets. They did not ask for such revelation; it was given spontaneously.
\nAny system of inquiring of the Lord through prophets cuts at the very root of the privileges of believers in this dispensation, in which all sons of God are individually led by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14). Christians need neither earthly priest nor earthly prophet to come between them and the Lord, and to submit to such a system for one moment is to sell our spiritual birthright of liberty. God forbid! Unfortunately such systems and such practices are sometimes foisted upon the ignorant and unwary as \u201cfuller revelations.\u201d A real knowledge of the Word of God, however, quickly exposes them.
\nWhile utterly rejecting any regular practice of seeking and receiving apparent guidance by so-called prophets and prophecy, especially when incorporated into any form of church government, we yet do well to keep open for the Lord to give us guidance by His Spirit in any way that seems good to Him, and there is no reason why we should not expect Him occasionally to give us light upon His will through the gifts of the Spirit. Such guidance should be strictly \u201cproved\u201d (1 Thessalonians 5:19\u201321) though, and checked by other methods of understanding the will of God before being acted upon. Many have made serious mistakes through failing to do this. We can easily place a mistaken application of our own upon a quite genuine message from the Lord.
\n9. Is there any difference between the gift of prophecy and the office of prophet?
\nThe \u201cspirit of prophecy\u201d (Revelation 19:10) can come upon a whole congregation at times (1 Corinthians 14:24, 31), and all Spirit-filled believers may prophesy (that is, give forth inspired utterance) on occasion.
\nBut \u201care all prophets?\u201d (1 Corinthians 12:29). Certainly not. The prophets were a distinct class (1 Corinthians 14:29\u201332) and were recognized as such because they regularly exercised the spiritual gift of prophecy in the assemblies (Romans 12:6; 1 Corinthians 12:10). Prophets are mentioned in Acts 11:27, 28; 13:1; 15:32; 21:10. Their divinely inspired words were of great value to the church, and so we find prophets usually ranked next to apostles in order of office (1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11).
\nTheir claim to office was exactly the same as any claim to any other of the New Testament church offices\u2014that is, a recognized ministry given them by God along a certain line. In this way God \u201cset\u201d every office in the church (1 Corinthians 12:28). Nowadays, we do not usually call men prophets who exercise the gift of prophecy all the time in their ministry, and because of that omission some people think that we have no prophets in the official sense. This is a great mistake. It is not calling a man a prophet or teacher that makes him such, and \u201csets\u201d him in the church; it is the man exercising such a ministry from God\u2014never mind what we may call him. The office is not in name, but in power.
\nIt is quite unscriptural to call certain ones \u201cset prophets,\u201d and so make a distinction between them and others who regularly exercise this ministry in the assemblies. All are equally \u201cset,\u201d and all are equally prophets if they have any recognized ministry from the Lord on this line that is profitable to the assemblies. The New Testament does not give a single shred of evidence for the fictitious office of the \u201cset prophet,\u201d and we are afraid that sometimes the creation of such offices springs only from a subtle form of priestcraft which aims at securing an unscriptural power over the church of God. It is the principle of popery, and as such we feel bound to resist it with all our might.
\nThere are many other questions and difficulties that are bound to occur wherever God is pouring out His Spirit in showers of latter rain. It is obviously impossible to deal with any more of them here. The answers to many such difficulties will be found, we trust, scattered up and down these studies.
\nThe one golden rule is to bring every question and every difficulty to the written Word of God\u2014and then submit to it. However attractive a temporary deviation from the Scriptures may appear, it is always fraught with tremendous danger. Safe progress is only assured as we \u201chold fast the faithful Word.\u201d We believe the Bible contains all the light the Church in any age will ever need upon any subject; if not in direct statements, then in general principles. We apply this statement unhesitatingly concerning spiritual gifts.
\n14
\nA Look in Three Directions
\nIn bringing these studies concerning spiritual gifts to a close, there appear to be three directions in which to look for our final consideration of the subject. We propose to look within, where we shall be reverently analytical; to look above, where we desire pure devotion; and finally to look around, to try to understand the practical application of the whole matter.
\nThe Inward Look\u2014Analytical
\nHere we seek to look within, and a proper sense of reverence must always be observed whenever an attempt is made to analyze the operations of the Spirit of God. We must beware how we look within the Ark; but nevertheless such a line of study must always have a legitimate place, and for those who are called to be teachers and leaders we regard it as more or less essential. There are dangers, however, and such study should always be conducted with a fine appreciation of the fact that at present we can only \u201cknow in part,\u201d and must walk humbly among the mysteries of God.
\nThe essential fact concerning spiritual gifts from the inward or analytical point of view is inspiration. To take away this one essential feature from our conception of the gifts of the Spirit is to weaken them beyond all recognition as identical with New Testament Christian experience.
\nThis supernatural element in the spiritual gifts of the Early Church\u2014the element of inspiration\u2014is almost unanimously admitted by fundamentalists, at least in regard to gifts of healings, working of miracles, prophecy, or tongues. We believe that we have only been consistent when we have lifted this conception of an essentially supernatural element until it applies to every one of the gifts. No other position seems fairly to meet the language of the New Testament or do justice to the subject. This conception of their inspired nature must be jealously maintained, or else all exercise of spiritual gifts will quickly lose its grip and power. It also needs defining and balancing, however; otherwise it will become the high road to wildest fanaticism.
\nWhat is inspiration? Most of us can supply only a hazy definition. We frequently hear the term used in connection with poetry, music, painting, etc. The dictionary defines a state of inspiration as being \u201cinstructed or affected by a superior power.\u201d It obviously implies being moved upon by some power outside of one\u2019s own personality. Unfortunately such things have become popularly connected today in a large measure with spiritism. Such \u201cinspiration\u201d is probably quite in accord with the dictionary definition, but we greatly fear that the \u201csuperior power\u201d at work is demonic. This must not blind us, however, either by prejudice or fear, to the glorious possibility of believers who are filled with the Holy Spirit being genuinely inspired and moved by the Spirit of God as recorded in the Scriptures. The Bible, in describing such inspiration, says that \u201choly men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost\u201d (2 Peter 1:21). We hasten to remove any false impression that we expect or claim any such infallible inspiration to be given today; we believe that in that particular measure it ceased with the completion of the Scriptures. But in the sense in which the spiritual gifts of the Early Church were inspired, we believe inspiration should continue right through this dispensation. We have already pointed out that the spiritual gifts of the Early Church were not regarded as infallible; and it is a fallacy to think that even in apostolic days they were placed on the level of the Scriptures.
\nOnce the principle is recognized that two personalities are involved in inspiration operative through spiritual gifts\u2014the personality of the individual, and the personality of the Holy Spirit\u2014we are in a much clearer position for understanding the Scriptures concerning them, and for dealing with practical problems that arise. It is failure to recognize and admit this principle that has caused most of the trouble. Some have only seen the divine side and imagined that the human personality was blotted out in the exercise of a spiritual gift; consequently they are muddled by instructions clearly given in 1 Corinthians 14, which implies that the will of the believer can control the gift. Thus, when any imperfection occurs, or the individual\u2019s personality plainly emerges, they see only the human side\u2014and want to reject the whole. This is just as unbalanced as that opposite position which would accept the whole as being purely and entirely from the Spirit of God.
\nThe ideal exercise of any spiritual gift is undoubtedly where a believer is being wholly controlled by the Holy Spirit. The exercise of a gift under such conditions is always beautifully \u201cin the Spirit,\u201d and perfectly glorifies God in the accomplishing of His will. This ideal is not always attained, however; and probably the most helpful view of inspiration we can hold is that it can, and does, vary in degree, both in individuals and on different occasions even in the same individual. It is the plain recognition of this very fact that underlies the teaching of 1 Corinthians 14, and places upon us the responsibility of proving all things, and only holding fast that which is good (1 Thessalonians 5:19\u201321).
\nThe possibility of such inspiration being operative in the Church today also makes quite up-to-date the apostolic injunction to \u201ctry the spirit\u201d (1 John 4:1\u20136); and therefore no inspired ministry should be accepted unless it can pass the scriptural test provided. Make sure such tests are scriptural, however, and not tests of one\u2019s own taste or tradition or prejudice.
\nThe Upward Look\u2014Devotional
\nHere we pause in wonder, love, and praise\u2014and look upward. The end of the gift is always to bring us to the Giver. To the believer, gifts of the Spirit should always be a means of devotion, an incentive to worship, a continual reminder of the presence of God. Even to the unbeliever they should equally produce, when properly exercised, a lively sense of the presence of God that brings conviction (Acts 2; 1 Corinthians 14:25).
\nNothing is more pitiful than to see believers playing with spiritual gifts as children play with toys, simply delighting in them for their own sakes, using them for their own glory and gratification, and then eventually losing all sense of their greatness and neglecting them like playthings that a child has become tired of. How deeply this must grieve the Holy Spirit.
\nThese glorious gifts are manifestations of the Spirit. That is to say, they proceed from the very Godhead. If we may but reverently trace them to their source we shall find they take us back among the very attributes of God himself. Up on the mountains of fellowship with the Almighty we begin to realize that those nine manifestations of the Spirit mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:8\u201311 imply far more than just particular forms of ministry in the local assemblies. They are indications and types, examples, and parts, of those eternal lines of divine activity by which the Spirit of God has been operating through all ages. Ultimately they reveal the Lord in all His manifold power and wisdom.
\nThe gifts of healing, for instance, are but the flowing of a tiny rill from the great river of Life\u2014the ever living God\u2014in whom all live and move and have their being. The gifts of the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge are an unlocking by the Holy Spirit of some of those vast treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid in Christ (Colossians 2:3). In discerning of spirits we are introduced to that awful yet glorious attribute of understanding in the Godhead by which all things are naked and open before Him\u2014the mighty Creator who alone sees perfectly the end from the beginning. Sweetest of all perhaps is the revelation of the divine emotion through the gift of prophecy, that marvelous gift by which the souls of men can somehow become in tune with the great heart of the infinite God and have something of the passion or the pleading, the thunder or the tenderness, of the God and Father of us all poured through them.
\nA vast field is waiting for the devout student of spiritual gifts. Rightly studied, they will bring a rich increase in that knowledge of Him whom to know is life eternal. The end of the gift is to bring us to the Giver.
\nThe Outward Look\u2014Practical
\nFinally, we must \u201clift up our eyes and look on the field.\u201d Reverent analysis has its function; loving devotion must ever find a place in true hearts; but for Christians to become exclusively absorbed in either analysis or enjoyment of their spiritual experiences is contrary to the Spirit of Christ. The whole subject of spiritual gifts must be finally related to the realities of the world in which the Church is called to work and witness, unless we are to become hopelessly morbid over the entire matter.
\nTo form a just judgment of the practical value of spiritual gifts, it is important to recognize that their intended sphere lies principally within the Church. They are to \u201cedify the body of Christ\u201d and are given for the enrichment of the family life of the household of faith as a \u201chabitation of God through the Spirit.\u201d It is in meetings or congregations of believers that most of the gifts of the Spirit will find their appropriate and congenial sphere.
\nYet evangelism, in some form or another, must ever occupy the foremost place in the vision of every true minister of Jesus Christ and in every spiritually healthy believer. To receive the gift of the Holy Ghost is to enter into a life where the \u201crivers of Living Water\u201d must forever be flowing outward to the thirsty hearts around. \u201cThe Spirit and the bride say, Come.\u201d Somewhere or other in every true manifestation of the Spirit of God there must exist the dynamic of divine love reaching out to a perishing world. The Lord never intended these spiritual gifts to become the \u201chobby\u201d of religious specialists, or the distinguishing mark of a mere denomination. Wherein lies their value, though admittedly within the church, toward them that are without?
\n(a) The first part of the answer is in relation to the Church\u2019s work. There are certain of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit that are especially intended in the economy of God as \u201csigns\u201d to accompany the preaching of the gospel. Their function is to attract in the first instance, and then to authenticate, if need be, the message and the messenger.
\nParallel conditions to the outward circumstances faced by Christian evangelism in the first century can, generally speaking, only be found today in comparatively remote mission fields. In such cases there seems every reason to expect an entirely apostolic experience of spiritual gifts and there are not lacking among Spirit-filled missionaries (whether nominally Pentecostal or otherwise) some thrilling testimonies to the fact that the Lord still works with His servants as at the beginning, \u201cconfirming the word with signs following.\u201d
\nIn lands where Christianity has been known and preached for centuries, parallel conditions to those faced by the Early Church, as far as evangelism is concerned, no longer exist. But even there it is being proven that the whole evangelistic situation changes when preaching the Word is accompanied by a courageous ministry of divine healing and deliverance from sickness and evil powers, in dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit. Indifference becomes broken down. Ever growing crowds are attracted, until it becomes a common thing for such campaigns to close with multitudes turned away from the largest public halls available.
\nMeetings of this type often provide scenes strikingly reminiscent of the Acts of the Apostles. Their scripturalness cannot be denied. Their success has been proven. Their possibilities, if prayerfully maintained under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, appear to be tremendous. Wisely followed up by other gifted ministries, as in the Early Church, they result in the establishment of permanent assemblies of God that present a large measure of the happy features of New Testament Christianity. Such assemblies become, in turn, centers for further evangelism.
\n(b) The second part of the answer is in relation to the Church\u2019s witness. This is more concerned with what the Church is, than with what she does. \u201cYe are the salt of the earth\u201d; \u201cYe are the light of the world.\u201d It has become an axiom that repentance and revival must always begin within the Church, and practical evangelism realizes the necessity of this all the time.
\nThe express terms of the promise of Pentecost were that the enduement of the Spirit would provide power to witness (Acts 1:8) not necessarily to preach, but essentially to witness. Any church that is enjoying genuine gifts of the Spirit being manifested in its midst is a truly Pentecostal church, and in that sense will be a witnessing church. The sheer force of its own experience of the Lord in its midst will ensure this and will make its witness bright and convincing.
\nA hint of what we might expect from spiritual gifts in the church on this line is provided by Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:25. In that passage he visualizes an outsider dropping in on one of the meetings of a healthy New Testament assembly, obviously not a special evangelistic service, but an ordinary gathering of the household of God. The man becomes deeply impressed, powerfully convicted, and leaves the meeting converted into a worshiper.
\nSome may complain that their experience of the use of some of the gifts of the Spirit in certain assemblies has totally failed to produce such desirable fruit. The passage itself provides the explanation. The proper results from spiritual gifts were not being attained at Corinth. The power to convince lies in the right use of the gifts. Hence Paul\u2019s teaching. The weakness was not in the gifts themselves but entirely in the folk who, probably with perfect sincerity, were misusing them. Such books as this are being written today to meet this identical need of teaching in order that the gifts of the Spirit may achieve their divine purpose in the assemblies. Local and individual failures do not justify a retreat from the subject; they only provide a challenge to return to it with greater wisdom and clearer faith.
\nThe deeper principle remains unshaken that a church throbbing with the fullness of Pentecostal blessing is always a convincing church. It may arouse antipathies, but it will never be insipid. Its meetings and its experiences will glow with the steady light of an intense reality. And there never was a generation more impatient of sham in religion than the present one. The questions now being asked are all to do with experience. Men want to know what we have, far more than what we believe. This is as it should be. The Early Church believed because she possessed. Her invitation and her challenge was to \u201ccome and see.\u201d Spiritual gifts then, and now, bring into Christian experience and into Christian worship a reality that burns like a fire. This is\u2014witnessing.
\nOne of the finest definitions of revival that has ever been given is just this: \u201cEvery true revival is a rediscovery of the living Christ.\u201d
\nHe does live. He is still \u201cthe same yesterday, and today, and for ever.\u201d But does that great and glorious truth need a rediscovery even among nominal Christians? Indeed it does.
\nJesus Christ is still the center of the world\u2019s religious and spiritual interest. We must not too hastily confuse a weakening attraction in the Church with a weakening attraction in the Christ. It is true that this interest comes from all angles, some of them far removed from the simple faith of those who love Him as their Saviour and Lord. Much stress is laid today upon His teaching, but with little indication as to how men are to receive the power to follow it. Beneath it all, though the importance of the fact may be dimly understood in its supremely fundamental significance, is interest in himself. Who was He? Nay, who is He?
\nThere is One whose special work it has been declared to be to glorify Christ and to reveal Him to men. This remains still the supreme function of the Holy Spirit. Wherever, therefore, the Spirit is working in truth, there comes a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It must inevitably follow that in the manifestation of His gifts there will come supremely a glorification of Christ, and a continuance of His power, both to do and to teach, that will provide nothing less than a rediscovery to those who have conceived of Jesus only as a dim figure of history.
\nI remember gazing upon Mt. Egmont in New Zealand, appearing once again in all its beauty after being hidden behind the mists for days on end. I remember rejoicing in the freshly revealed glory of the Jungfrau in Switzerland in just the same way. We knew that the mountains had been there all the time, but we longed to see them.
\nThe day when we shall see the King in His beauty hastens, but is not yet. Meanwhile, however, the clouds of unbelief and the fogs of lukewarmness have rolled away from a mighty host of God\u2019s people all over the earth under the touch of a heaven-sent revival that has begun to give back to the Church an enjoyment of her pristine inheritance of supernatural gifts of the Spirit, and the Living Christ has been rediscovered.
\nStill He waits to save the sinful,
\nHeal the sick and lame,
\nCheer the mourner, still the tempest;
\nGlory to His Name!
\nAddendum:
\nThe Word of Knowledge
\nTwenty years ago I contributed to Redemption Tidings magazine a series of articles on spiritual gifts, and these were later published in England as a small book entitled Concerning Spiritual Gifts. That book was translated into several European languages, Arabic, and Chinese. Ten years ago I prepared an enlarged and revised edition for publication in America. It has been used as a textbook in some Bible schools, and I have been pleased at the way sales continue. The book seems to meet a real need for what one reviewer has described as \u201csane and scriptural teaching\u201d on the subject.
\nMy views on this interesting and important subject have undergone practically no change. The rather they have been confirmed. Since the publication of Concerning Spiritual Gifts other books on the subject have been written by gifted Pentecostal writers. I have sincerely welcomed them all. The subject has been so little dealt with in Christian literature and is so vital to the Pentecostal revival all over the world that there is ample room for anything fresh and constructive to be written. I wish especially to make clear that I have welcomed interpretations that differ from my own regarding the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge. All of us still know only in part, and with honest humility of mind can afford to make room for every ray of light which seems to break forth from His Word, even when for the present we find it difficult to relate it to our own convictions. Those who hold and teach opinions different from my own on these matters are among my best friends and truest brethren, and for a long time now we have agreed to differ without any loss of personal fellowship. What I now write is devoid of any feeling except a desire for the truth.
\nThe differences among Pentecostal expositors of the gifts of the Spirit mostly gather around the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge\u2014the two gifts that Paul places at the head of the list in 1 Corinthians 12:8\u201310. I shall confine myself to the word of knowledge because the principles I hold to be true in defining that gift sufficiently cover the word of wisdom also, although the two gifts are, of course, quite distinct. They are distinct in the way that all wisdom and knowledge are distinct\u2014no more and no less.
\nIn my opinion, the word of knowledge is a teaching gift in the church. I offer three reasons for this conviction.
\n1. First, the context demands such a definition of the gift; and it is an axiom of sound interpretation of the Scriptures that any text should be understood in the light of its context
\nIn 1 Corinthians 12:14 the apostle is dealing with spiritual gifts in the church, and he likens them in his famous figure to members of a body. This settles it that we are to look for the word of knowledge as one of the gifts of the Spirit operating in close relationship with other members of the body of Christ. But more: in these chapters the apostle is writing specifically about the meetings of the assembly, \u201cwhen the whole church be come together.\u201d This involves more than the spiritual fellowship of the members of Christ\u2019s body in the personal sphere; this brings it all into the public sphere. Whatever place some of these gifts (notably tongues) might have in private devotions and edification, the apostle in these chapters stresses very particularly their function with relation to others in an open assembly.
\nAny correct definition of the word of knowledge must therefore conform with the context. It evidently is a gift that holds a place of high honor (Paul places it high on the list) for use when the church comes together and all things are to be for edification. Among the suggested channels of such edification we find \u201cdoctrine\u201d (14:26). If doctrine, which is a ministry of teaching, is connected with any gift of the Spirit referred to in 12:8\u201310, it will be either the word of wisdom or the word of knowledge, and most simply the latter. It is clearly to be distinguished from prophecy, which conveys a \u201crevelation\u201d (14:30). All the conditions of the context are therefore fulfilled when we define the word of knowledge as a teaching gift in the church.
\n2. My second reason is based upon the simple description of the gift\u2014it is just a word of knowledge. No more, no less.
\nNow, all teachers are men with words of knowledge in the broad and accepted sense of the term. A teacher can teach only what he knows; and conversely, the possession of knowledge places a man in a position where he can teach others. Be a man ever so apt to teach, yet he can work only with the material he possesses in the shape of knowledge. But when a man possesses important knowledge, and particularly when he is a Christian who is filled with knowledge of the glorious things pertaining to the kingdom of God, he longs to share his treasures with others. A man whom the Holy Spirit has gifted through revelation, meditation, instruction, or better still with all three fused together in the baptism in the Holy Ghost and fire, will long, as Paul longed (14:19), to \u201cteach others also.\u201d A holy fire to teach the precious things imparted to him by Christ will burn within his heart. The possession of a word of knowledge does, therefore, almost automatically make a man a teacher as nothing else will do. The gift operates with all that intense passion and irrepressible spontaneity which we rightly associate with all the gifts of the Spirit. Teach he must, and to define the gift of the word of knowledge as a teaching gift in the church is a satisfying, consistent, and worthily Pentecostal definition of its nature and purpose.
\nThis seems the place to pause and point out that the context does not leave us free to luxuriate among all the possible fields of knowledge when we are describing this gift of the Spirit in the Church. Attractive so-called \u201cillustrations\u201d from Holy Writ or from personal testimony are quite beside the mark. They have no value whatever for proof when they are connected with a purely arbitrary definition of the word of knowledge. In most instances these alleged manifestations of the word of knowledge have a perfectly obvious connection with the prophetic gift and office, and we should leave them where they rightly belong. Taken by themselves, as manifestations of God\u2019s gracious revelation of all kinds of knowledge to men of things great and small, they move us to worship. But they completely miss the point if they are adduced as so many instances of what Paul had in mind when he wrote to Corinth about a gift of a word of knowledge in the Church. If we want an illustration of that gift of the Spirit from the Bible, we can find it preeminently in all the glorious doctrinal passages of the New Testament, where again and again Christian teachers exultantly declare, \u201cWe know.\u201d
\n3. My third reason is that the highly important office of the teacher within the church does require to be linked up with some recognized manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It is intolerable that such a vital function within the body of Christ should be viewed simply and solely as the work of purely natural ability, however consecrated and trained; especially when its compensating type of ministry through prophets (note prophets and teachers in Antioch\u2014Acts 13:1) is so plainly the result of a Pentecostal gift. Much mischief can result from misunderstanding and error here.
\nThere is within the Church, as commanded by the apostle, a humanly trained ministry of systematic teaching, that is to be transmitted from generation to generation. \u201cThe things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also\u201d (2 Timothy 2:2). This permanent and important ministry finds its crowning glory whenever it becomes inspired by a more directly Pentecostal gift. Then, although the truths will be the same, and indeed the speaker may be the same, there will be something burning and shining that is nothing less than the word of knowledge manifesting afresh the anointing of the Comforter. Both the speaker and the hearers are conscious of a Pentecostal power accompanying the doctrine. It is in such ways that the Church of all generations hears once again the very voice of her Lord and is taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus (Ephesians 4:21). A manifestation of the Spirit is thus given through an inspired word of knowledge and blessed are those whose understanding has been enlightened to see these things and know them at their true value.
\nThere are men who teach in the churches, but who are not teachers; even as there are men who prophesy in the churches, but who are not prophets. The Christ-given offices of Ephesians 4:11 involve something imparted directly by His Spirit, and they are never attained by training in schools. They are truly gifts. They manifest the Holy Spirit. To divorce a true teacher from the word of knowledge is to leave the office without any commensurate spiritual gift, and equally to leave the gift without any expression in office. What God hath joined together let not man put asunder. They are one. The God who has \u201cset\u201d the teacher in the church (1 Corinthians 12:28) has also equipped him with the word of knowledge (verse 8). Happy are those who recognize the divine connection.
\nWhen the definition of the word of knowledge as a teaching gift within the Church seems so obvious, we may well pause and ask ourselves why some should turn aside to other explanations. The answer has been frequently provided. It is simply that if we regard the word of knowledge as a teaching gift, we do not make it \u201cwonderful\u201d enough! This position needs examining.
\nWe are all agreed that all the gifts of the Spirit are fundamentally supernatural. They are the \u201cshining forth\u201d (lit.) of the indwelling Spirit. They originate in, and indeed ARE, the grace of God. But from the basic truth concerning spiritual gifts it is too often (and too easily) assumed that they are only manifested in ways that are abnormal and spectacular to a high degree. It is demanded that they shall all amount to miracles in a very crude sense of the term. To define the word of knowledge as a teaching gift in the Church does not satisfy this naive desire for something quite extraordinary to the most undiscerning and immature spectator. He wants something equivalent in this respect to tongues or healings where the supernatural element is striking and easy to recognize. Any far-fetched definition of the word of knowledge is acceptable to such an attitude of mind, if only it be \u201cwonderful\u201d enough.
\nThe correction for this error will be found in a direction which may be surprising to some seekers after truth. It is the reward of a careful and right understanding of the real nature of the gift of tongues\u2014another one of the group of spiritual gifts of utterance. The widespread and blessed restoration of the gift of tongues through the Pentecostal revival of this century has been the principal factor in clothing the whole subject of spiritual gifts with new interest and significance. But for all that, the real nature of the gift of tongues still is largely misunderstood.
\nOur present purpose is served by repeating that speaking with other tongues is obviously supernatural. God has intended it so. This side of the truth gives it a unique value as the scriptural initial evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:46). The touch of the supernatural has rightly enough enthralled the multitudes who have shared the blessing. But comparatively few have understood the real nature of the divine inspiration behind the tongues. For many people it has been a supposedly mechanical operation of the Spirit of God by which He has spoken through their human vocal organs while their own personality has been dormant.
\nIt requires only a superficial study of the Scriptures to correct this erroneous and sometimes dangerous view. On the Day of Pentecost the disciples spoke with tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:4). In the subsequent instances in Acts 10 and Acts 19 it was the other men who spoke with tongues, though always because the Spirit of God had come upon them. But it is quite unscriptural to say that the Holy Spirit speaks in tongues. When we turn to the intimately related, but not quite identical, place of speaking with tongues as a gift of the Spirit in the Church, we find it stated in the plainest of language that \u201che that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God\u201d (1 Corinthians 14:2). This certainly is not Members of the Blessed Trinity conversing with each other through some human channel! It is the man\u2019s own spirit speaking to God. Paul proceeds to state this fact in language too plain to permit any other meaning when he says in verse 14, \u201cIf I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.\u201d His consequent teaching on the right use of the gift of tongues in the church is all based on the fact that men can and ought to control their own spirits. The surge of divine emotion that produced the manifestation was genuinely supernatural; it was the fullness of the Spirit of God within men; but under that inspiring power it was the human spirit that prayed and sang and gave thanks in a tongue. To hold a right theory of inspiration is absolutely essential to a right understanding of spiritual gifts.
\nThe application of all this to the word of knowledge should be plain. The inspiration at the source of all the speaking gifts of the Spirit is identical, whether it be the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, prophecy, diversities of tongues, or interpretation of tongues. No more, and no less. But the outwardly unusual and spectacular element may well be less in some than in others\u2014which was precisely what had caused the troubles in Corinth. Those fervent but immature believers insisted on placing tongues in a higher category even than prophecy, just because it seemed to them a more supernatural gift. Our beloved Pentecostal Movement may well take heed.
\nAs Paul goes on with his instruction to them about spiritual gifts, he makes an interesting and important distinction between the spirit and the understanding of these Spirit-filled Christians. He includes himself and uses the first person singular for this key portion of his teaching, referring to \u201cmy spirit\u201d and to \u201cmy understanding.\u201d He says most explicitly that it was his spirit that would \u201cteach others also\u201d (vv. 14\u201319). The same Holy Spirit inspired both emotion and intellect. In the word of knowledge we have a manifestation of the Holy Spirit through the understanding, or the mind, or the intellect (it is all the same thing) of the believer filled with the Spirit. It is inspiration upon that part of him that \u201cknows.\u201d Paul prayed for the same blessing to be granted to the Ephesians when he requested that \u201cthe Father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know \u2026\u201d (Ephesians 1:17, 18).
\nWe shall verily be guilty of the same folly as the Corinthians if we refuse to recognize a spiritual gift simply because it operates in a manner free from intense emotion, and the rather reveals itself under more normal conditions and through the realm of our God-given mental powers of understanding. We shall be equally foolish if we try to drive the word of knowledge into mystical channels of remarkable revelations concerning men and things instead of allowing it its true and honorable place as a Spirit-anointed ministry by which we may hope, like Paul, to \u201cteach others also.\u201d
\nThe practical application of all this to the Pentecostal revival may not at first glance seem very important. Only a growing sense that it is important has moved me to write these things, when I would far rather have left alone a subject that involves controversy. I now have neither inclination nor time for that which possesses little more than academic interest; but this is practical.
\nNot long ago a pastor came to me with a problem which is rampant wherever spiritual gifts are manifested in our assemblies\u2014and it is such assemblies that are carrying on the testimony of this revival, however imperfectly. \u201cMy people,\u201d he said to me, \u201cfeel that the Holy Spirit has not spoken in our meetings unless we have had tongues and interpretation. Yet we all felt in that meeting a great unction upon the ministry of teaching, and the following messages in tongues and interpretation added nothing to what had already been spoken; indeed, they seemed far lower in spiritual illumination than the doctrine we had been listening to with such profit and delight.\u201d Related to that kind of problem is the idea that a Pentecostal meeting is somehow incomplete without something given out in tongues and interpretation. Still worse is the feeling that far greater authority should be attached to tongues than to teaching, however weak the one and mighty the other. Thanks be to God that a healthy spiritual mind in the people usually corrects all this in a rough-and-ready way by forgetting the tongues and remembering the sermon! But sometimes this is at the expense of quite unnecessary twinges of conscience.
\nAll this is corrected and brought into true perspective when we see that in an anointed and inspired ministry by one of Christ\u2019s teachers set within the Church we have been listening to the word of knowledge as a gift of the Spirit. Many assemblies are asking the Lord for the \u201cgreater gifts\u201d when they ought to be thanking Him that they are there. They await recognition. In the witness within us of a burning heart, as Christ, by means of these gifts that He has set within His church, once again speaks to us and opens our understanding that we may understand the Scriptures, is the indisputable evidence that we have been blessed by nothing less than a shining forth of His blessed Spirit.
\nTo recognize the word of knowledge to be a Pentecostal gift for teaching in the Church is not to rob ourselves of something supernatural. On the contrary, it is to most profitably and comfortably increase our appreciation of the richness and wonder of those diversities of operation that all manifest the same Spirit. The end is greater glory to the God who is the Giver of all.
\nNovember 4, 1947
\nDONALD GEE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of … <\/p>\n