Updated 2/19/18, 1:45 p.m.
The Study Text for 1 Cor 12
The study text for 1 Cor 12 is attached here: 1 Cor 12, Clausal with Codes w o FN
“Member” and “Body,” “Diversity” and Unity Key Words / Concepts
The key words, and the key theme, of this chapter is “members,” which are many, and that they are joined together into one unit, the “body.” The components and their relationship has been created by God for His purposes: distributing gifts to build up the local body of believers under the Headship of Christ, the True and Only Shepherd of the flock.
This structure, that of both distinctions and unity, is parallel to what God has created in marriage and family: the two, man and woman, become one, yet remain distinct, and likewise the children that emanate from such union.
The idea of a “one,” in philosophical terms a “universal,” is one of the oldest and most deeply considered ideas. In our Hebrews study, that text also revealed this framework of there being many and yet also a universal, even to the extent that the many were essential to revealing the universal. In the Hebrews epistle the “many” were all the predecessors to Jesus Christ in the OT, wherein Jesus was and is “the Universal.” It was a hard idea for the Jews and adherents of the OT to accept given the 1500 year history of that treasured, and God-authored and -honoring text. Was that all now (upon Christ’s appearance, death, and resurrection) to be set aside? Was the OT now (i.e. then at the time of the writing of Hebrews) irrelevant? Was it always irrelevant?
Of course the answer to such questions was the OT was essential to point toward, anticipate, and bring focus to the Messiah, namely Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God and the true Priest and King.
You can find the Hebrews study beginning here:
Charisma / Charismatic
This chapter is an important one to those in the so-called charismatic churches. The word “charisma” is actually a Gr word occurring multiple times in the above study text.
Unfortunately, the word “charisma” has a contemporary meaning, namely an outgoing, expressive, even drama-laden expressiveness, often used in a favorable light as a trait worth having or a person with such trait worth following. The Bible has no such meaning associate with the word. The Gr word charisma means gifts. It derives from the Gr root chara which means (broadly) joy or gladness, and is closely related to the Gr word charis which means grace, the great word of the Gospel.
As to the NT use of the word charisma it is in reference to specific enablements, called “gifts,” from God for the purpose of building up the church. The gifts are enumerated here in 1 Cor 12, but the list is not exhaustive. There are other gifts identified in other NT texts and even the full complement of identifiers does not confine gifts to just those particular ones. Further, the gift term (like “helps” or “administration”) is itself a category encompassing many varied instantiations of such gift. If we think of a musician as an example–though, interestingly, “music” is not a listed gift here in 1 Cor 12–we all have had the experience of recognizing someone as gifted musically. But such giftedness does not mean that the person can do anything and everything in the domain of music from composing lyrics and notes, to conducting, to playing every musical instrument known to man, to singing, to yodeling, to whistling, and so forth. Also for each specific instantiation there is a wide variation in level of talent: an ability to perform in small groups may not translate to large stages; following musical notation created by others is not the same skill as the ability to extemporaneously create or modify music as a skilled jazz musician can, and so forth.
The Holy Spirit
What is often missed in the study of 1 Cor 12 is the essential role of the Holy Spirit. The subject / theology of the Holy Spirit is complex, deep, extensive. Here let us grab ahold of several key truths.
The Holy Spirit is a Being
It is not uncommon to hear characterizations of the Holy Spirit as just some “Spirit” meaning something like an otherworldly signaling source, namely: that the Bible is only referencing some force that exists outside or beyond our strict confines of space and time where but can influence us by sensations, feelings, premonitions, ideas, even whispers, visions (inner and even outer), dreams, etc.. In such sense “the spirit” has been reduced to something like a force of nature like the steadiness of gravity or the randomness of a ‘shooting star’ (meteor) or lightning. Such a “spirit” has no real being. It has existence, as does meteor trails, but there’s no ‘there’ there in the sense of personhood (or, better said, “being”).
Here is 1 Cor 12 and elsewhere in the NT, the Holy Spirit is clearly identified as a supernatural Being–something distinct from a heavenly angel–an individual, a person, though obviously not a “person” in the sense of some finite, mortal person locked in space-time as we all are. The Holy Spirit is God, not just a force of God.
Such a claim leads some to say that were that to be true, then we are proclaiming polytheism, specifically a three ‘gods’ ultimate reality. And if there are three, why aren’t there many more, thousands, millions, billions? Polytheism, however, is an idea contrary to the clear teaching of the Bible, namely that God is One. However, in a mystery likely beyond our full comprehension there is revealed to us in Scripture that there is God The Father (the so-called First Person of the Trinity), God The Son (The Lord / Yahweh Jesus Christ, the Second Person), and The Holy Spirit (the Third Person). three distinct persons, but of One God. (Various metaphors have been attempted over the years to explain this; it is likely beyond any explanation beyond the simple teaching that there are Three in One and it is One truly).
The full defense of the doctrine of the Trinity is beyond our scope here. I will quote (as best as I remember it) what someone has said would have had to been the case at the baptism of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels were there not the Trinity, namely: that Jesus must have been a ventriloquist with a pet bird. Of course that was not the case: Jesus who was God was being identified with sinful man as the substitute for man, as the Lamb of God, and yet truly both the Son of God and of man, was confirmed by the very voice of God The Father and make visible by the identification of the Holy Spirit as a dove.
The Holy Spirit is Sovereign
In the study text given at the top of this page there are many highlighted places in 1 Cor 12 that clearly reveal the underlying sovereignty of the Holy Spirit Who governs all the spiritual gifts, and the creation of “the body” from such gifted “members.”
In doing this work, the Holy Spirit is not just some super powerful angel carrying out the commands of the distant God-Creator. The Holy Spirit is God, and One at the same time.
The essential character of God is sovereignty. We can easily fall into sloppy thinking along the lines of this: God surely has His domain of absolute control, but I have mine, and you have yours, and groups of us, like governments, have their own. God was of course first, this flawed thinking goes, so He was ‘back then’ sovereign over everything when there was nothing (some sovereignty!). Then, He created immaterial stuff and still then He was sovereign. But once He created me, well, then, His sovereignty ended at the boundary of me and whatever I put my mind and hand and feet to say, do, or go. Further, since there are about seven billion of us alive today, with nuclear bombs and rockets capable of going into deepest space, all under out control, God’s area of control has become much smaller. Perhaps he still runs things on Neptune where we have not yet taken ahold of.
Such line of thinking is crazy. God cannot be “God” but for His being sovereign. Like the Trinity, this is no easy concept for us to absorb, and it leads to many questions and puzzles. But such difficulties in our half-pint brain cannot determine what is, in fact, the case.
Spurgeon on the Sovereignty of The Holy Spirit
Charles Haddon Spurgeon preached and wrote many wonderful texts, fortunately preserved for us (he had, as we say, a dramatic change in address, in 1892). He was a human subject to all such fallibilities. But there are so many, so many, of his texts that give insight to the Bible, which was his life goal. Here’s one such passage from “Spurgeon On The Goal of Preaching:”
Preach the necessity for the Holy Ghost’s divine operations. This will follow on as a matter of course from the previous doctrine. ‘Men must be told that they are dead, and that only the Holy Spirit can quicken them; that the Spirit works according to his own good pleasure, and that no man can claim his visitations or deserve his aid. This is thought to be very discouraging teaching, and so it is, but men need to be discouraged when they are seeking salvation in a wrong manner. To put them out of conceit of their own abilities is a great help toward bringing them to look out of self to another, even the Lord Jesus. The doctrine of election and other great truths which declare salvation to be all of grace, and to be, not the right of the creature, but the gift of the Sovereign Lord, are all calculated to hide pride from man, and so prepare him to receive the mercy of God.’
*Ghost is an old English / Shakespearean word meaning “spirit” in the sense of a Being outside of our physical world, but which word has been used loosely of the ethereal some-how yet living remnants of dead humans. So a better translation today is the word “Spirit;” the underlying Gr word is the root of our “pneumonia” relating to “breath” as in the breath of life itself, something which God infused into mankind at Creation and now proclaims through His Word (literally “God-breathed” in 2 Tim 3:16).
Once one begins quoting Spurgeon, it is hard to stop. So let us have one more, one that is particularly relevant to Sovereign Grace:
When you feel yourself to be utterly unworthy,
you have hit the truth.
Amen.
All Do Not Have the Same Gifts
The closing section of 1 Cor 12 contains a powerful refutation of (1) my personally seeking a gift not already given to me, and (2) any notion that all of us believers should have, or can have, the same of any given gift.
The structure of this closing passage is in the form of a series of hypothetical questions each expecting, even demanding, a “no!” answer. Such a literary form has a special power as the text engages us, requiring our participation in the line of argument to drive home, and make crystal clear, an important point.
So the questions begins (1 Cor 12;29), (literally, in the Gr text) “All Apostles?” Just before the word translated as “all” is a small Gr particle transliterated as “me” with a long “e” sound, which is pronounced, approximately as “may.” This word does not have a simple English translation. The closest would be “no” or “not” with the implied structure: “[are] ALL apostles…{No!]”
There can be no confusion on this even without knowing Gr. The entire epistle makes clear that there is no plethora of “apostles,” of which Paul was just one example, and that every Corinthian believer (and us) should likewise believe / know that they too are an apostle or could be if they really want to.
Further, the entire argument of the body being made of individual, discrete, and different members makes no sense if every believer has ever gift in common with all other believers. If the body were an “eye,” where would the sense of hearing be? One could argue, well my body has both an eye and an ear (or two), so the analogy doesn’t mean that I cannot have both because in fact I do have both physically. Well, that argument is with the Holy Spirit who makes clear in this text that in His analogy that we each are only a part with a special enablement, so it’s not “me” that’s “the body” in this argument. “The body” of the group of believers God has called together is the Lord Jesus, the Shepherd of the sheep.
What Gifts Are There?
There are three gift lists here in 1 Cor 12.
List 1: Used as examples of “members” being part of the “body.” See 1 Cor 12:4-11
- Word of wisdom (sophia Strongs # G4678)
- Word of knowledge (gnosis G1108)
- Faith (pistis G4102)
- Healings (iama G2386)
- Working of miracles (dunamis #G1411)
- Prophecy (propheteia G4394)
- Discerning of spirits (diakrisis G4151)
- Different kinds of tongues (glossa G1100)
- Interpretation of tongues (hermeneia G2058)
List 2: Used as an ordered list. 1 Cor 12:28
- Apostles (apostolos G652)
- Prophets (prophetes G4396)
- Teachers (didaskalos G1320)
- Miracles (dynamis G14110)
- Healings (iama G2386)
- Helps (antilempsis G484)
- Administrations (kybernesis G2941)
- Varieties of tongues (genos G0185 of glossa G1100)
List 3: Used to drive home the point that all do not have all the gifts. 1 Cor 12:30, 31
- All Apostles?
- All Prophets?
- All Teachers?
- All workers of miracles?
- All have gifts of healings?
- All speak with tongues
- All Interpret? (diermeneuo G1329)
Is There a Master List of Gifts?
If we try to combine the above three lists to create a master list, we would only have a list of examples here in 1 Cor 12; other parts of the Bible identify still other gifts: see 1 Cor 13, 1 Cor 14, Rom 12, Eph 4, and all of the Epistles 1 and 2 Tim, and Titus. Further, even a list made up of lists upon lists would not confine the Holy Spirit’s granting of special enablements. Think of all the geographies, cultures, and times that the whole earth and 2,000 years of time has been confronted with the Work of the Holy Spirit since the writing of 1 Cor 12. There is no Biblical basis to believe that the only gifts that God has provided for the care, support, growth, encouragement of His flock are narrowly even the 20 or so gifts we can find specifically expressed in Scripture. The absence of one ‘super list’ which the Bible makes clear that such is the full, complete, and final list of the only manifestations of the Spirit is further indication that the work of the Holy Spirit is not confined to any list that man can make.
Another aspect of such gifts is the absence in the Bible of using any gift as a title of any particular person. (More on this subject below). No one is called anything like “Teacher Timothy” as a title. When Dorcas died, her friends as friends would do here and now expressed their particular sorrow at the loss by giving evidence of the work, and gifts, of her now stilled hands (Acts 9:36-39). But she was still, simply, beloved Dorcas, just as we all are in whatever ability the Spirit has enabled us to express by the work of our hands (feet, and voice). And, in an aside here, but too beautiful to pass up, Dorcas was raised miraculously by Peter’s unique Spiritual gift to bring her from death back to physical life to give them, and us, the comfort of anticipating that we all will supernaturally be raised to life after this one, not by Peter but by our Lord Jesus Christ, and not to just a second physical life but to an everlasting one, and not just just into the presence of earthly friends, but into eternal loving presence of God in His Full Self, and with our family and friends (and, I think, our doggie).
Did Any of The Gifts of 1 Cor 12 Expire?
An issue of controversy, especially in the past 100 or so years, is whether the gifts of the Spirit with respect to their supernatural aspects continue to this day.
To examine this question let’s define “supernatural.” Any gift of the Holy Spirit means something beyond just natural ability, talent, inclination. Further, any gift means something beyond which we all have in some measure as believers, such as “faith” and the capacity “to help.” At issue is does the Holy Spirit provide certain of God’s elect today an ability to overcome the bounds of natural laws.
Languages (Tongues)
Let’s take as one example that matter of language. Since the curse upon Babel, the inhabitants of the planet have been confronted with the limitations of language as various people groups use different words and even scripts (images like letter forms) from all other people groups. The situation today is that there seems to be about 7,000 different languages on the earth and there have been still more that are now extinct. Through the wonders of the internet, it is now readily possible to find local language newspapers online. Below are two examples:
- The oldest Hebrew language newspaper still published in Israel: https://www.haaretz.co.il
- The Afrikaans-language newspaper in South Africa: https://www.netwerk24.com/za/rapport
We all understand that different people have different capabilities in terms of learning and mastering new languages. But do some, gifted by the Spirit, who have made no such ‘ordinary’ effort to do so, have the ability to read either of the above newspapers? If so, that would be a supernatural ability. I am not aware of a single documented example of such an enablement. If someone can claim otherwise, it would be simple to observe it.
Yet there are people who have extraordinary language gifts. In the late 19th and early 20th Century there was such a person, Prof. Dick Wilson at Princeton Theological Seminary who believed he was called to learn every language that the OT had been translated into up through the year 900 A.D., when (approximately) the final Hebrew Masoretic text that we all rely on today was finalized. How many languages was that? 45! And, so, Prof. Wilson spent more than 15 years of diligent study, after having spent many years as a Ph.D. student and later professor mastering the Biblical and other languages, to master each of these 45 languages so that he could example the OT as it had been translated into each of these languages during the first 900 years after Christ. This was no ordinary ability. To learn more about Prof. Wilson you do an online search of him, and can go to charts on the Book of Job where I’ve traced the Biblical decline of certain once great U.S. universities: http://www.idealmaking.org/week-18-new/ and http://www.idealmaking.org/week-21-new/
Miracles (Broadly)
What then about the gift of “miracles?” On its face the word suggests an enablement to overcome the physical laws of the universe. Is that what it means? And, if so, do some today have that ability? Think of the very first missionary journey, undertaken by Paul and Silas, with the story beginning in Antioch (Syrian Antioch) in Acts 13. First they go from the city of Antioch to the port city of Selucia on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea seeking to go to the Island of Cyprus. The Bible clearly says they “sailed” to Cyprus, and it suggests they first got to Selucia in the ordinary way of trudging 15 miles, mostly downhill. They (there were three of them: Paul, Silas, and John Mark) were carrying all the supplies and presumably some money for something like an 18 month journey.
Did Paul commandeer some kind of aerial chariot or teleporting machine to get them down to Selucia? If so, the Bible is silent. What about going from Selcuia to Cyprus? That was about 100 miles of open sea travel on boats with no motors, no GPS, and no buffet service on the lido deck after afternoon jazzercise. How did they get there? Angelic power on a carpet? The text on every part of the ca 1200 mile treacherous journey strongly suggests they did every step in the ordinary way of fellow travelers at that time. If you trace out just the physical aspects of that 1st Missionary Journey you can understand why John Mark might have abandoned the effort: it was physically taxing, long, uncomfortable (no Motel 6, not even a Motel 2), and dangerous. Why no “miracles?”
Another issue on “miracles,” is that the Biblical Gr word is dunamis as shown in the above list and in the study text pdf given at the top of this page has a semantic range of meaning that is important. The Gr word dunamis means “power,” and is in fact the root of our English word “dynamite.” In certain cases it does indeed mean supernatural power, but not always. It can mean special enablement, and the capacity for doing such. If one wants to climb Mount Everest, and there is a small industry that supports such adventure, one hires sherpas, native men who have special powers (capacities) that can greatly help carrying supplies and navigating the way up. There are Christian people in missionary support who seem to have incredible abilities to service, manage, and pilot all manner of jeeps, ships, helicopters, and airplanes assisting the work of people carrying God’s Word to all manner of remote places. But there’s no evidence of any such folks being able to fly using only their cape ala Superman.
Yet, we must note that the NT definitely gives us specific examples of miraculous tongues (languages) and miracles themselves (raising the dead, etc.). Those events and powers were not illusory or tricks. They were real and amazing by definition because they were truly extra-ordinary, i.e. beyond any ordinary experience and natural laws. But the occurrences were discrete and few in number. Further the Bible does not give us examples of many different people having such abilities. Our examples are primarily, but not solely, Peter and Paul. And we know at the end of Paul’s life he left people sick (unhealed) and was in need of the simplest of things, a cloak (which acted as a blanket). So whatever miraculous powers were then exhibited were (1) not universal in terms of NT people, (2) not universal in the sense of occurring repeatedly and regularly in the events of the day, and (3) not passed on to the succeeding generation such as Timothy and Titus.
Apostles, Prophets, Teachers
Now, how about the first three gifs of List 2 above: Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers? This is a parallel situation to the above examples of tongues and miracles. During the calendar years of the NT period, ca. 30 to 100 A.D., the NT did not fully exist. All that was available was the OT and the words of the Apostolic eye witnesses, including Paul, and those who were taught by the Apostles, such as Silas, Timothy, Apollos, Priscilla and Aquila, and others. There were then, as there is now, also many false apostles and prophets and teachers doing their corrupting thing, sometimes for money, sometimes for glory, and sometimes just as vandals, just as we have today. How did God cause His Word to emerge out of this darkness and confusion? The Spirit gave gifts, first supernatural ones, to create Scripture (the NT). So during that NT period there were such miraculous manifestations of these three categories of communicators (Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers) to establish what we call the canon (rule) of the NT.
What about since the NT period? As we example by each of the Gr words translated by apostle, prophet, and teacher, we can see that they can mean an ordinary, un-supernatural, enablement. An apostle is literally someone who has been sent to convey a message (apo is the Gr prefix for away from, and stelle is the authority/statement of the king or other authority that is to be conveyed to others). Likewise a prophet speaks forward a word (the literal origin of the word is to forward-carry), and teacher is one who divides / categories a body of knowledge to enable it to be apprehended. So those gifts exist today, namely enablements beyond just naturally-occurring talents, but not supernaturally so. Those gifts are expressed today within the confines of bringing to life in our time and place the Word of God, OT and NT, not creating some new revelation as though it were God’s new word(s) to just one person for the purpose of being re-communicated to others on behalf of and with the authority of God.
People of Prominence
There is not a single human name given in 1 Cor 12. One might think that in a chapter enumerating the many gifts of the Holy Spirit that there would be also, at least by example if not by instruction and even command, an identification of specific individuals at Corinth who had these various gifts and, as such, should be honored and recognized. Instead we have the opposite. Why?
The answer has to be that the individuals are not the important issue, and naming names actually compounds the prevailing problem of disorder in the Corinthian body, as in our church bodies today. Gifts are not about highlighting people, especially those with the more outward gifts. Highlighting leads to worship disorder such as creating an environment where people become followers of one person or another (the 1 Cor 1 disorder) or where (apparently) women (and men) accustomed to the idolatrous practices of the pagan Corinthian culture seek to replicate the independent teaching authority of women following in some way or another the popular ‘priestess’ model (the disorder of 1 Cor 11).
We have numerous, something like two dozen, ‘church’ bodies identified in the NT books of Acts and nine of the Pauline Epistles. Not one of these bodies–not a single one–has been identified with “The Pastor,” “The Bishop,” of any “The X” (where X stands for any title). Not one. Why is that?
Because Jesus said “I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). He did not say, “I will help you build your church,” or some other permutation of that claim and promise. There is only one identity that should and deserves to be affixed to any body of believers and that’s Christ Himself. Any other name used to represent a body or to be used in some way as the “significant” one is stolen valor, claimed glory, and diminishing Christ. This is really a difficult temptation when God has so clearly enabled some individuals.
When so-and-so, Mr. X let’s call him, was there on ‘day 1’ when a local body of believers began to be formed, it is very tempting to call Mr. X the “Founding Y” (where Y is some given title). But, if it’s really Christ’s church, then no man has ‘founded’ anything.
Or, when Mr. X arises as one of the elders to some level of prominence because of eloquence, social standing, or financial contribution, it is tempting to ascribe some special honor to them, beyond that which is proper of expressing appreciation to any brother (or sister) faithful to God’s gifts and calling.
Or, when Mr. X has been great gifts of proclaiming God’s Word, it is tempting to ascribe his audience as members or followers of Y X (where Y is the title, and X is the man’s name); you can fill in the blanks for Y and X.
Or, when Mr. X is on the payroll governed by the elders of some local body (the church), which the Bible clearly teaches such financial compensation is proper for a person working hard at preaching and teaching (1 Tim 5:17, 18; 1 Cor 9:9), and that person is worthy of the honor of attention as the Bible is being taught, it is tempting to go beyond that and entitle Mr. X. Doing so elevates Mr. X, stealing valor from Christ, and actually becomes a potential cause of pride in Mr. X, which is a common plague of those in the public eye. Why not just call him Mr. X or brother X, and keep Christ in central view and help Mr. X from falling into the sin of pride which stalks all of us, especially those in the public eye, like a pack of devouring hyenas?
Scripture clearly teaches that we are not to call any man “Father” (Matt 23:9), or “Priest” (as we are all “priests,” 1 Peter 2:9), or “Saint” (as we are all “saints,” meaning set apart by God), or even “Teacher” (Matt 23:8, 10). Again, we have the powerful example by silence in the NT, and clearly here in 1 Cor 12 and the entire Corinthian Epistle, that no man was called by any of such names in any of the two dozen or so church contexts.
Let us not forget beloved Peter before his restoration after Christ’s resurrection on the shores of the Sea of Galilee . Before the Cross, Peter was prideful, part of the inner group of the inner group, as he saw it, and ready to fight by physical swords even to death if necessary (he thought) to defend Christ and His Message. And even after his restoration in Galilee, there was still some more Jewish pride that had to be expelled, which God arranged by using the Roman Centurion and, later, Paul’s rebuke. Ultimately, Peter recognized himself solely as the servant of Christ, and did end his life fighting with the sword, but it was the sword of God’s Word controlled by God, and in utter, joyful, humility.
Paul in his Epistles to Timothy, who was to continue teaching God’s Word as Paul departs life, refers to Timothy beautifully, but only, as “true son in the faith” (1 Tim 1:2) and “a beloved son” (2 Tim 1:2), not “Apostle Timothy” or another other such title.
Two General Commentaries on 1 Cor 12
A lot of trees have died in the writing and publishing of commentaries on 1 Cor 12. There are many many solid, reliable, helpful commentaries. Below, I have provided pdfs of two that are, in my view, faithful to the text:
1 Cor 12, MacArthur Study Bible
1 Cor 13 study resources are here: