“The Spirit and Spiritual Gifts”
(1 Corinthians 12:1-3)
Series: Chaos & Correction (1 Corinthians)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
•Take your Bibles and join me in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12 (page 773; YouVersion).
We are grateful for those who are praying for us in the prayer room this morning in our three morning worship services. While we are in here, they are in there; praying for God to speak to us and have His own way.
If you’re visiting with us we have been studying Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and we are now at chapter 12. Recall the three main divisions of this letter. The contents of the letter could be outlines as “Divisions, Disorder, and Difficulties.” There are divisions in the church (chapters 1-4), there is disorder in the church (chapters 5-6), and there are difficulties in the church—namely theological difficulties—(chapters 7-16).
We are in this last section, then, where Paul addresses theological difficulties, answering a number of questions the folks at Corinth raised for Paul. Since he was the one who founded the church at Corinth and spent 1 1/2 years there getting the church started and grounding them theologically and biblically, they had some further questions about theological matters and wrote him for help.
That’s why, with your Bible open, you glance down at verse 1 of chapter 12 and you read this phrase, “Now concerning…” This is a common way of Paul’s beginning to answer questions they had written him about. This pattern begins in chapter 7 where Paul says in Chapter 7 and verse 1, “Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me.” And Paul begins by answering their questions first about marriage and then in chapter 7, verse 25, “Now concerning virgins (or those betrothed to marriage), and then recall chapter 8, verse 1, “Now concerning things offered to idols,” and in chapters 8-10 Paul addresses Christian liberty and when we should restrain our freedoms. Then in chapter 11 Paul begins a section of material on public worship.
So here we come again to this phraseology of Paul’s, “Now concerning” which tips us off to the fact that he is again returning to specific questions the congregation wrote to him about. The congregation wrote to Paul asking him to help sort out their questions and concerns about spiritual gifts. How many of you have heard that term before, “Spiritual gifts?” Okay, we’re going to be studying these now in chapters 12-14.
We have first a few introductory verses of Paul’s to get us started on our journey and so we’ll look this morning at verses 1-3.
•Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant:
2 You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led.
3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
•Pray.
Introduction:
Whenever we study teachings on the Holy Spirit I am nearly always reminded of that passage in Acts 19 where Paul enters into Ephesus and he finds some disciples there and he’s checking to see what they have learned about Christ and about the Word and what they believed. And he asks them this pointed question. He asks, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And Luke writes that they responded, “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit,” and I can recall hearing a preacher say, “They were like the average Baptist!” We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.
Well, of course, there is a Holy Spirit and I trust most of us here at Henderson’s First Baptist know this full well.
The Holy Spirit is God, the third Person of the Trinity, and He is the One who seals the Christian at the moment of his or trust in Christ, at the moment of salvation, and indwells the Christian, God lives within us by way of His Holy Spirit. And we experience greater or lesser senses of His filling us to the degree we that we yield our lives to Him.
God has indwelt every Christian, every believing follower of Christ has within himself or herself the Holy Spirit. And God uniquely empowers or gifts each Christian, each believing follower of Christ in the local church, He has empowered or gifted us for service in the church.
So we’re going to be talking about these various spiritual gifts in the weeks ahead. We’ll be talking about the spiritual gifts of faith, gifts of healings, word of knowledge, miracles, prophecy, discernment, and of course the gift of tongues, or speaking in tongues.
That’s where we’re headed in the next several weeks and I look forward to our study together. This morning, these introductory verses, verses 1-3, lay a foundation that will be helpful to our fuller understanding of one of Paul’s main points.
So let’s go through these three verses again and I’ve arranged the material in my study this week under three main action points. The first action point has to do with our knowledge about these matters and the need for us to do some thinking and comprehending how the Spirit works and His purpose in and through the church. So Paul begins with this first main point I’ve worded as:
I. Reinforce Your Spiritual Comprehension (1)
Paul wants the Corinthian Christian—and by way of extension—the Kentuckian Christian to be sure he or she is learning, thinking, comprehending the importance of the works and ways of the Holy Spirit. So he writes in verse 1:
1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant:
Well, that’s I nice desire, isn’t it?! Paul says, “I do not want you to be ignorant,” the word is aÓgnoei√n, from which we get our English, “agnostic,” one who believes nothing can be known about God. Paul uses the word here to describe one who is simply without knowledge, one who does not know about the works and ways of the Holy Spirit. “I do not want you to be ignorant.”
Paul had taught them previously about the works and ways of God when he founded the church at Corinth and spent 18 months there. He had taught them about spiritual things and he is taking time now in this letter to reinforce that teaching, that they might reinforce their comprehension of what he had taught them. Reinforce your spiritual comprehension.
Now the first part of verse 1 reads, “Now concerning spiritual gifts,” but the original is simply, “Now conceding the spiritual,” and the word “gifts” is supplied. And without going into a lot of unnecessary Greek grammar here that would confuse me to say nothing of you, let me just say that this phrase could be translated as, “Now concerning the spiritual ones,” that is, “those who are spiritual and the various gifts given to each one.”
That may well be the better translation because one of Paul’s main points in these three chapters—chapters 12, 13, 14—is that all Christians are spiritual. No one Christian is “more spiritual” than another based on which spiritual gift each has.
This chapter is about the allotment of spiritual gifts to various persons in the congregation. We’ll read again in a moment that all who confess “Jesus is Lord” qualify as the spiritual ones. All Christians fall into the category of “spiritual,” all are equally empowered by the same Spirit and have an important function and role in the church. So Paul may well be saying here, “Now, let me talk about the spiritual ones here,” and what he would mean by that is that, “I’m talking to every true Christian, every believer in the church, I’m talking to all Christians because all Christians are spiritual, the spiritual ones.”
In any case Paul is clear on this in verse 1, “I do not want you to be ignorant.” I love that phrase. I don’t want to be ignorant, do you? Anyone want to be ignorant, raise your hand. Okay.
So we begin by reinforcing our comprehension of spiritual things. Reinforce your spiritual comprehension. Secondly, Paul says:
II. Recall Your Sinful Condition (2)
Look at verse 2:
2 You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led.
Paul is talking about the Christian’s prior condition before being saved. He’s talking about our sinful condition prior to receiving Christ. Verse 2 again, “You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led.”
Let’s break this down. First, the word “Gentiles” there is also translated as “pagans” in some translations and that’s really better I think because literally the word is e¶qnh, from which we get our English ethnic or ethnicity. It was a way of referring to anyone who was not of the nation of Israel. So it was a way of referring to anyone who was not a Jew. Or put another way, if the Jews were the nation of Israel, then the Gentiles were the nations that remained.
It’s kind of cool here because in saying, “you know that you were Gentiles,” or “you were non-Jews,” Paul is saying they no longer are non-Jews and, at the same time, they are not now Jews. So who are they? They are Christians. They are now the “church of God” as Paul had said back in 1 Corinthians 10:32: “Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God,” a new category.
It’s kind of like when I moved from California to Georgia as an 11-year-old and all my new friends called themselves “rebels” and wanted to know if I were a rebel or a yankee. Well, coming from California I didn’t even know what those terms meant. Rebel or yankee? It’s like the guy said of Tom Cruise’s character in the NASCAR movie, “Days of Thunder.” Because he was from California someone asked, “He’s a Yankee?” And the guy says, “Californians aren’t Yankees…they’re not really anything,” and the other guy says, “You said it!”
So these Corinthian Christians were no longer Greeks and yet they had not now become Jews, but it’s not like they weren’t anything, either! They were now, “the church of God,” a new race of people who stand in solidarity and continuity with Old Testament Israel.
But they once were Gentiles, unbelieving non-Jews, pagans. And that’s what most of you were, as well. We were all once pagans. You know that, right? I mean in the sense that Paul uses the term here, the sense is that before Christ we are ungodly and dead in our sins. We may be religious, but we are dead spiritually because we are sinners and we are slaves to sin.
And that’s why Paul says in the second part of verse 2, “(You were) carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led.” That is, you followed wrong teachings or wrong notions of God, false gods, or you were otherwise irreligious.
In any case, you were “carried away” to these false notions of God, “however you were led.” That is, whether it was Satan or demon spirits or false teachers or what have you, you were led astray. That’s the idea here and the greater point, I think, is that you were not led of the Holy Spirit. Had you been led of the Holy Spirit, you would be a believer, but you were not led of the Spirit, because as of yet, you did not have the Spirit.
You were “carried away to these dumb idols,” that is mute idols, idols that cannot speak; otherwise: useless idols. As someone has said, “The worst thing about idols is that they are utterly useless when you need them most.”
So whether you were following another religion or philosophy or prided yourself upon being agnostic or atheistic or—in the case of the Corinthians before they were saved, you believed in a number of gods—in any case you were “carried away” by a sinful nature and by a sinful susceptibility to follow anything other than the One True God.
As Paul writes in a similar passage, in Ephesians 2 and following, You were dead in trespasses and sin. It will take a miracle to make you believe in Christ. And that miracle comes by way of the Holy Spirit through the gift of regeneration that breaths life into our deadness that we may live and trust in Christ.
So Paul teaches the Corinthians of yesterday—and the Kentuckians of today—recall your prior condition, your sinful state before Christ. Recall your sinful condition. Thirdly, then, Paul says:
III. Rejoice in Your Saving Confession (3)
And what we have in verse 3 is this beautiful statement and reminder that Christians have been enabled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to believe in Christ and to thereby confess Him as Lord. Verse 3:
3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
Note the contrast here. First, Paul says, “No one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed.” The word “accursed” there is the word aÓna¿qema, anathema, some of you are familiar with that word, a term to describe one who is cursed.
In Paul’s day this sort of language was applied by the Jews to Jesus of Nazareth. You note this especially in the Book of Acts where Paul and the early apostles encountered Jewish resistance to the teaching that Christ is the Messiah. The unbelieving Jews condemned this teaching in the synagogues and opposed Paul’s teaching of Jesus as Messiah.
Memorable to most of us in the death of Stephen at the end of Acts 7 where he has a vision of Christ and said, “I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,” and the Bible says the unbelieving Jews, “cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him (Acts 7:57-58).”
As far as the Jews were concerned, “Jesus was accursed.” This idea is also reflected in Justin Martyr’s dialogue where specific mention is made of the Jews anathematizing Christ in their synagogues.
And it is possible that the Apostle Paul, before he was saved, and was known largely as Saul of Tarsus, it is possible that he too engaged in this blasphemy by forcing others to condemn Christ, forcing them to say, “Anathema Jesus.” You will recall in Acts 26 as Paul stands before Agrippa, sharing his personal testimony, that Paul says of his former opposition to Christians, “I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme (Acts 26:11).” That was before his eyes were opened and the veil removed from his heart and mind.
Paul’s teaching in the New Testament is that the Jews have continued to read Moses—that is, the Old Testament Scriptures that point to Christ as Messiah—they have continued to read Moses as with a veil over their hearts and minds, unable to see Christ for who He is. And he teaches that the only reason believing Christians see Christ for who He is, is because God has removed the veil. Like John Newton’s words, “I once was blind but now I see.”
2 Corinthians 3:14-16:
14 But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.
15 But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.
16 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
So the unbelieving Jews see Jesus and say anathema, or “Jesus is cursed.”
Now Ray Stedman was helpful to me in my study and really broadened my thinking on this matter. Listen to what he says about this phrase, “Jesus is cursed.” He says:
You do not have to say those words to fulfill what Paul is saying here. Anyone, for instance, who says that Jesus Christ nothing but a mere man is virtually saying, “Jesus is accursed,” because according to the teaching of the Bible the whole race is cursed; the curse of Adam’s evil has come upon us all and twisted our inner life to make us self-centered and living for self-that is the curse. And it is universal, everybody is born with that inner drive to be the center of attention and to have the universe revolve around him. That is the curse. Now when you say that Jesus was nothing but a man, a great teacher, perhaps, a moral leader, whatever, you are saying that he too is part of that cursed race, that he was not free from it, although in the Biblical record it is the virgin birth that preserved him from that taint of sin. He was not under the curse of Adam; that is why he could be our Deliverer from it. Therefore, all teaching that puts down Jesus, that denies his deity, that says he is not the redeemer, that he too is nothing but a great teacher, is, in effect, saying “Jesus is accursed.”
Who is Jesus? Is He Lord and Savior or do you think of Him in a lesser way, a way that diminishes His glory and reduces Him to merely a philosopher or good moral teacher. To do so is to say, “Jesus is accursed.”
Now again, Paul’s main teaching here is that the unbelieving Jews see Jesus and say anathema, or “Jesus is cursed.” Believing Christians, on the other hand, see Jesus and say, “Jesus is Lord.”
This is the earliest Christian confession of the church, to declare that Jesus is Lord. Recall Romans 10:9-10:
if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
But the only reason our heart ever believes unto righteousness thus enabling the mouth to make confession, “Jesus is Lord” is the Spirit of God removing the veil from our unbelieving hearts. God in His grace reveals to us who Christ is and enables us by His Spirit to see Him, to trust Him, to believe Him, to love Him, to follow Him.
This certainly calls for humility on the part of the Christian. We dare not boast about our seeing what others do not see. The only reason we see with spiritual eyes at all is because God breathed His Spirit into the deadness of our condition and gave us eyes of faith. Jesus did that. “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.” To God be the glory! He receives all the credit for our salvation.
Furthermore, that Christians have been empowered by the Spirit to utter this saving confession means that we are all equally gifted by the Holy Spirit. It is not as though some are “more super spiritual” than others because their spiritual gifts are perhaps more visible—such as an enabling one to speak in tongues—but all are equally important to the body of Christ however each is gifted. This seems to be Paul’s point down in verse 13:
13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.
All are equally important and none are to be despised. Who qualifies as a spiritual one? Each member of the body of Christ! All persons who confess, “Jesus is Lord” are included in those described as the spiritual ones.
So it’s not only those who speak in tongues who are spiritual! It’s any person who can say, “Jesus is Lord.” That’s who’s spiritual! That means each and every member of the body of Christ is spiritual. There is to be no spiritual elitism in the body! No mere spiritual folks here and super spiritual folks over there! This is the primary error Paul that seeks to correct in these chapters.
As we’ll see when we get there, this is precisely why we have 1 Corinthians 13, the so-called “Love Chapter” positioned between chapters 12 and 14. It’s not as though Paul was looking for some filler material that might be used later in wedding ceremonies. He was teaching that whatever spiritual gifts these Corinthians may have had, they were virtually useless if these folks did not have love for one another.
The body of Christ is, in a sense, like a bag of golf clubs. Each club has a specific use. The driver does his job, the putter does his, the 8 iron and sand wedge do their job. They’re all vitally important to the game of golf. If you try to prioritize one of those clubs, say use the driver for everything—then you’re going to have a hard time putting that little ball into green with your big old, driver. Similarly, if you try to “tee off” with your putter, you’re not going to get very far and you’ll eventually ruin your club in the effort. Each club has a specific use and each is vitally important to a successful round of golf.
And each Christian has been uniquely gifted—empowered and enabled—with a gift to be used in the body of Christ. No one gift makes the one gifted more or less spiritual than another. There is no spiritual elitism in the body of Christ.
•Stand for prayer.
“No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
Who is your Lord? Or what is your Lord? For some it is science, for still others, self. For some it is philosophy, a job, money. For some, sex is Lord. Truth is only Jesus is Lord. You either bow before Him as number one or you reject Him. Turn to Him this morning and be saved from your sin.
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