Concerning Spiritual Gifts

Donald Gee

• Publisher: Gospel Publishing House
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781607313274
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Explores the supernatural works experienced in the Early Church and defends the premise that the Bible is inspired Word of God

1

Spiritual Gifts

IT 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.

Most 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’s 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 “special miracles” were wrought by Paul’s hands (Acts 19:11). The word is literally “not the ordinary” miracles, and the fact that some forms of miracles might even be regarded as “ordinary” goes to show how widespread was the church’s experience of the supernatural in those days.

It 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 “signs,” 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.

A 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, “earthen vessels,” 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.

Another 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).

Somewhat similar to the gift of prophecy was the more mysterious gift of “tongues” 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.

Meetings of the Early Christians

It 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!

Of 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’s supper. There were collections and business conferences. There were special fast days and special meetings when well-known brethren had come to town.

Yet throughout all these familiar features there runs in the New Testament an unmistakable streak of “something” different, some essentially supernatural touch that made them aglow with an unearthly quality. Prayer could become “praying in the spirit” and might even be in “tongues” 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

And 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.

The Gift of the Holy Spirit

Therein 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.

With 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’s searching question to certain disciples whom he immediately sensed to be spiritually lacking in a vital part of their Christian inheritance—“Have ye received the Holy Ghost?” (Acts 19:2). The challenge was to experience, not to doctrine. How significant! An Ephesian “Pentecost” speedily rectified their shortcoming, and it was an experience as vivid as all the rest had received—“They spake with tongues and prophesied.”

That 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.

The very phrase “manifestation of the Spirit” 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 “manifests” itself) whenever the owner places his finger upon the switch.

There 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, “Thus 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” (1 Corinthians 14:25). Such could be the result of spiritual gifts in the church.

Not Imitation, but Inspiration

The rich variety afforded by so many “diversities of operations” 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.

That the meetings were “open” 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.

It 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 “make all things according to the pattern” 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 “open meetings” 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.

Actually speaking there was the highest type of order permeating and safeguarding the liberty of the early Christian congregations. The gift and ministry of “governments” clothed presiding elders with an authority recognized as from God himself (1 Corinthians 12:28), and this was accompanied by a “discerning of spirits” 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.

The 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’s final words on the matter, “Let all things be done decently and in order,” show that a proper exercise of spiritual gifts is consistent with the strictest ideas of genuine reverence.

Two Forms of Ignorance

Paul commences his sane and illuminating treatment of the subject of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians, chapters 12 to 14, with the word, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.”

The “ignorance” 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 “came behind in no gift” 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.

It 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 “father” in Christ to kindly lead them into the right way.

Today we confront a more fundamental “ignorance” 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 “ignorance” 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.

Startling 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.

__________

¹ 1 Corinthians 14:14; Acts 4:24; 1 Corinthians 2:4; 14:30; 14:15; Colossians 3:16; Acts 20:30; 14:27; 13:2; 15:28.

² Acts 2:4; 8:17; 9:17; 10:44; 19:6; Galatians 3:2; Ephesians 1:13.

2

Are Spiritual Gifts for Today?

MANY ASK if spiritual gifts are for today. Why not? The burden of proof surely lies with those who say, “No,” rather than with those who say, “Yes.” There is nothing in Scripture, reason, or experience to make us believe that the gifts of the Spirit are not for today—every one of them.

What 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?

1. “The Lord withdrew these manifestations of His Holy Spirit at the close of the apostolic age.”

On 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 “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29); that “Jesus Christ [is] the same yesterday, and today, and for ever” (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 “even unto the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). If we are going to whittl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Preface
• 1 Spiritual Gifts
• 2 Are Spiritual Gifts for Today?
• 3 The Purpose of Spiritual Gifts
• 4 The Word of Wisdom
• 5 The Word of Knowledge
• 6 Faith, Gifts of Healing, Working of Miracles
• 7 The Gift of Prophecy
• 8 Discerning of Spirits
• 9 Tongues and Interpretation
• 10 The Gifts and Fruit of the Spirit
• 11 The Bestowal of Spiritual Gifts
• 12 Abuses: Their Cause and Cure
• 13 Some Difficulties Considered
• 14 A Look in Three Directions
• Addendum: The Word of Knowledge