Transcript

In a certain mountain village in Europe several centuries ago, a nobleman wondered what legacy he should leave to his townspeople. At last he decided to build them a church. No one saw the complete plans for the church until it was finished.

When the people gathered, they marveled at its beauty and completeness. Then someone asked, “But where are the lamps? How will it be lighted?” The nobleman pointed to some brackets in the walls.

Then he gave to each family a lamp which they were to bring with them each time they came to worship. “Each time you are here the area where you are seated will be lighted,” the nobleman said. “Each time you are not here, that area will be dark.

“This is to remind you that whenever you fail to come, we miss you, your fellowship, and your service, and some part of God’s house will be dark.”

Every single person in the Body of Christ is needed and important. Each is a vital part of God’s Church. Collectively, we are the Body of Christ as a whole.

Individually we are members in particular, each one is a key part of the whole and your gifts and service are needed for the Church to be what God intents it to be. Without your part, that part of the church is dark. With your part, the church lights up.

1 Corinthians 12:18 tells us that each member has been placed in the Body of Christ as it has pleased God. And in the Body, where He has placed us, He has given each of us spiritual gifts with which to serve the Lord and others.

At the beginning of the dispensation of grace, however, God gifted members of His Body with miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. In this episode, we’ll be looking at these gifts to understand each of them better and why God gave them.

1 Corinthians 12:27-28: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.”

It is very interesting to note here that Paul calls this one local congregation in Corinth, “the Body of Christ.” They were a proper, smaller representation of the entire Body of Christ. As a local assembly, they fully manifested the Body of Christ locally.

Thus we learn that God manifests a complete picture of the Body of Christ in each individual congregation. And by the Holy Spirit, each local church of believers is given all that is necessary to truly represent the Body of Christ as a whole so that Christ and His love and grace may be revealed in their community.

In verse 27, Paul speaks of the unity of the Body. In verse 28, he reminds us of the diversity of the Body, as the Body has all different people with differing gifts.

As a principle, one Body with differing gifts, carries down to this moment. But not all the gifts explained by Paul in verse 28 are in operation right now. Most of them were only for the establishment of the Church at the beginning of this dispensation.

Verse 28 reminds us of God’s authority over the Church. “God hath set some in the Church,” or He gives the gifts and places the members as He wills.

By the words “first, secondarily, thirdly, and after that,” we see that the order Paul lays out the gifts in this verse are given in their order of importance for the early Church.

He begins by saying “first apostles, secondarily prophets,” as of first and second importance, God gave the early church gifted ones in the offices of apostles and prophets.

These were apostles and prophets OF GRACE. They were saved by the gospel of grace, members of the Body of Christ, and people who served in light of God’s program for today.

“Apostles” were “sent ones,” “one sent on a mission,” “a divinely appointed representative.” The apostles were those who were sent by God and carried and spread God’s truth with God’s authority abroad and established local grace churches.

“Prophets” were those who proclaimed God’s Word. They were spokesmen or mouthpieces of God. Prophets supernaturally spoke revelation from God by His Spirit and by God’s authority without error. They communicated the mind and will of God accurately.

It seems that the office of a prophet was more localized and concentrated on a local assembly, whereas apostles had a much broader ministry, not confined to any area.

Without God’s Word being completed, the gifts of apostles and prophets were necessary at the beginning of the dispensation, as God supernaturally revealed His will and the message of the Mystery to the Body of Christ through these people.

They had the responsibility of receiving AND declaring the revelation of God’s Word. The apostles and prophets of grace received the revelation of the mystery for the Church by the Holy Spirit and made it known to others by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Paul says of the mystery that “in other ages [it] was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (3:5).

The grace apostles and prophets also gave confirmation of that divine revelation through “signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds” as 2 Corinthians 12:12 says.

The gifts of apostles and prophets concerned the revelation of God’s Word. And thus, that’s why they are at the top of this list as first and second. What God has to say to us is always what is most important.

It was vitally important for the founding of the Body of Christ and the establishment of the dispensation of grace, for God’s Word and His new revelation to be made known to the Church by these people, so the Church knew how to live and function.

Apostles and prophets were foundational gifts to assist in the establishment of the Church, the Body of Christ. Ephesians 2:20 teaches how the Church is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone.”

Once that foundation was laid, however, and the Scriptures were completed these gifts fulfilled their purpose and ceased.

Someone has observed that “The apostles and prophets were like delegates to a constitutional convention. When the convention is over, the positions cease.”

And as it’s been rightly said: “If we’re still laying the foundation of the church 2000 years later something is wrong!”

These gifts have stopped. And with this in mind, I believe to call any person an apostle or prophet is not only wrong, it is dangerous. Today, no one demonstrates the signs and miracles of an apostle, and no person speaks the Word of God by revelation.

The Word of God is complete! Based on their function, to call someone an apostle or prophet is to insinuate that it is not complete. So to be very clear, I am not a prophet, my parents were not prophets, and I even work for a non-profit organization!

The gift of teachers is next and third on the list. This gift remains I believe, because it is about expounding on and explaining God’s revelation that has already been given.

In the past, this gift worked in tandem with the apostles and prophets, as those with the gift of teaching, grounded the converts won by the apostles and in the message of the mystery proclaimed by the apostles and prophets.

Teachers have the ability to communicate the revealed truth of God with knowledge, ease, and clarity. They are gifted in bring the Word to life, by expounding, interpreting, unfolding the meaning clearly so God’s people may understand.

By the Holy Spirit, who is THE Teacher of the Word, they are gifted by God, and enabled by the Spirit, to help others learn His revelation in His now completed Word.

“Miracles, then gifts of healings.” These temporary gifts for the early church were confirming signs of the truth of God’s message and the gospel of grace.

They accompanied the revelation and proclamation of God’s Word only as long as God was still revealing the Mystery. When the revelation stopped and the Word was complete, the miraculous sign gifts stopped.

“Miracles” are “a supernatural intrusion into the natural world and its laws, explainable only by divine intervention.” These miracles were done by God’s power and clearly revealed His authority over the natural world and its laws.

It’s interesting and fascinating that miracles comes after teaching in this list. Though less dazzling or impressive, the teaching of the Word of God has more edification, more impact, and longer-lasting effects on a life than an extraordinary demonstration of God’s power over the natural world through a miracle.

The teaching of God’s Word and the receiving of that Word resulting in change in a person’s heart and life by the Holy Spirit is a true wonder and an ever greater miracle.

The gift of healing was something God gifted people to do in the early church. It was characterized by individuals being made completely whole. “Healings” is plural, showing that this gift took care of any kind of affliction that needed healing.

In the beginning of this age, people were even healed through Paul’s sweaty handkerchiefs and dirty aprons that Paul had touched or used when he worked (Acts 19:11-12)!

There were two different purposes for healings in the Bible. Under prophecy, healing was a foretaste of the millennial kingdom and a sign of Israel’s Messiah. Under the mystery, healing was a sign to Israel that God was setting her aside in unbelief.

The final recorded healing by Paul took place on the island of Melita in Acts 28. There Paul, and those with him, lodged with a man by the name of Publius.

And Acts 28:8-9 says, “that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him. So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed.”

After this, there is no mention of any miraculous sign healing by the Apostle Paul.

Instead, after this in Paul letters we read of the sickness of three of Paul’s faithful helpers.
In 1 Timothy 5:23, Paul told Timothy, “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.”

In Rome, Epaphroditus ministered to and for Paul. And Paul wrote the Philippian church, “For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow” (Phil. 2:27).

In 2 Timothy 4:20, Paul wrote that “Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.”

You find that this gift of healing departed after Acts 28. Paul was utterly helpless to do anything for his sick friends except to prescribe a physical remedy and to pray for them. That’s exactly what we do now too.

A great change took place, by the will of God, between the time that Paul miraculously healed those on Melita and the time he wrote, Trophimus have I left at Miletum SICK.

After Melita, the miraculous sign gift of healing by the Holy Spirit ceased. Thus, based on Scripture, we hold that no believer today has the miraculous gift of healing.

Unfortunately, the healings in healing services are often like the story my grandfather once told our family.

Some years ago, my grandfather was traveling home from Pittsburgh and decided to stop at a roadside restaurant to pick up a cup of coffee. As he was waiting for the waitress to fill his order, he overheard two men talking to a friend sitting in the booth behind him.

They were sharing how they had just come from a church in downtown Pittsburgh where a well-known faith healer was holding services. Apparently, these gentlemen were approached on the street to appear on stage.

Prior to their introduction, they were instructed to simply say that they had been healed of a particular ailment. My dad recounted that they were laughing about it as he went out the door, stating: “It was the easiest fifty dollars they had ever made!”

Sadly, this kind of thing probably takes place more than we know with the supposed healings that take place in healing services.

The gift of healing has ceased under grace, but we know that God can and God still does heal today according to His perfect will. God is still the Great Physician. And we should pray for others who are sick and suffering in this light.

The example of Epaphroditus is a case in point, when he was sick and nigh unto death, Paul wrote “but God had mercy on him” (2:27).

Next on the list, Paul wrote of the gifts of “Helps, governments.” Like the gift of teaching, “helps and governments” are gifts that I believe are permanent gifts till the Rapture.

During the great storm that Paul encountered on the ship bound for Rome, the sailors “used helps, undergirding the ship” (Acts 27:17).

These heavy ropes, chains, or cables, were used to literally tie the vessel together, cinch it up tight, to keep it seaworthy and prevent it from going to pieces.

By the Holy Spirit, we have the privilege to act in a similar way toward fellow members of the Body of Christ who are struggling through the storms of life.

We can rush to their side and undergird and strengthen them by the Word of God, by prayer, by just being there for them, to hold them together and to help keep them from going to pieces.

Helps is a gift of selflessness, helping and supporting others by the love of Christ. The word means to take a burden off someone else and to place it on yourself.

Paul taught the Ephesian elders in Acts 20: “I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak…” (20:35).

Helps is not a glamorous or showy gift, and is often unnoticed and overlooked. But it is a spiritual gift of God, and it is noticed and highly prized by Him.

“Governments” literally refers to one who steers the ship through the rocks and shoals to harbor. Paul is referring to leaders and workers who carry out the administration of the Church. It is a supremely essential gift.

In any church, there are those who shoulder the routine day-to-day, behind-the-scenes administration of the local assembly. Their gift and service is needed for the Church to move forward. They work with organization, efficiency, effectiveness, and faith.

“Diversities of tongues.” It’s interesting on this list of gifts, that tongues is last. According to verse 28, the most important gift was an apostle, the least important was tongues.

The irony is that the gift that so many highly esteem today was considered by the Apostle Paul as the least valuable!

While some will say that speaking in tongues is a sign of spirituality or mature faith, it actually has nothing to do with spirituality or faith at all. And the gift of tongues was never given to everyone.

So it is not a requirement of a believer or a proof of salvation to show they have the Spirit. It was a miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit that God gave to only certain in the Body of Christ according to His will during the days of the early Church.

And according to 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, as we’ll see in our next episode, there was a point in time when the gifts of tongues was withdrawn.

Tongues was the supernatural gift to speak in the language of “men of other tongues” as 1 Corinthians 14:21 puts it. It was a known language of the world and the ability to speak in a foreign language never learned. They were never taught or trained how to speak in tongues. The Holy Spirit miraculously enabled them.

Often it is taught and believed that tongues are a heavenly language only understood by God. This is based on a couple verses. First, 1 Corinthians 13:1: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels…”

In the Word of God, however, when it is recorded that angels spoke, they always spoke in the language, or the tongue, of the person to whom they were ministering. We can be certain that angels are fluent in all languages. The “tongues of angels” doesn’t refer to a heavenly language, but any known language, and with the eloquence of angels.

The other passage that is used to promote that tongues is a heavenly language is 1 Corinthians 14:2: “For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.”

The “unknown tongue” here isn’t unknown because it was a heavenly communication with God Himself that only He could understand, but rather it was an unknown tongue because the hearer had no knowledge of the foreign language that was being spoken.

Paul is saying that only God could understand him and no man could because no person present in the congregation knew that foreign tongue.

The point Paul was trying to make is that he who spoke in a tongue without interpretation was not speaking for the benefit or edification of the church who could not understand him, which the context goes on to bear out and teach in chapter 14.

In addition, the gift of tongues was for the spread of the gospel of grace to the nations. It greatly accelerated the spread of the gospel and thus the growth of the Body of Christ, giving it a firm foundation as the Church began.

Corinth was a seaport city, located on a trade route. It was a melting pot. Many from other countries traveled thru this area. God gifted believers in the Corinthian church with the gift of tongues to communicate the gospel with these people from other countries.

1 Corinthians 12:8-10: “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.”

Along with the gifts of verse 28, verses 8-10 speak of the additional gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, discerning of spirits, and interpretation of tongues.

The gifts of “wisdom” and “knowledge” had to do with God’s revelation of His Word, and with receiving, understanding, and applying that divine knowledge properly and insightfully.

They would do so “by the Spirit.” It was a divine endowment of wisdom and knowledge, supernaturally imparted to the recipient. These were important gifts before they had a completed Bible or all of Paul’s epistles and the truth for the Body of Christ under grace.

The could not just pick up a Bible like we can to learn God’s ways and will, especially as the dispensation of grace was gradually being unfolded.

Therefore, the Spirit supernaturally imparted God’s wisdom and knowledge of grace to members of the Body, who would articulate that word of wisdom and word of knowledge to others with persuasiveness and eloquence and power.

At the beginning of the dispensation, God also gave the gift of “faith” by the Spirit. This did not have to do with the gift of faith to save your soul. It was a supernatural gift given after one trusted the gospel of grace and was a member of the Body of Christ.

The gift of “faith” by the Spirit allowed and moved one to demonstrate their unshakeable confidence in God Almighty and inspire others to do the same.

It gave one the boldness and courage to speak the truths of grace and the Cross of Christ in the face of Satanic opposition. By the Spirit they maintained a strong trust in God in the midst of difficult circumstances.

“To another discerning of spirits,” Paul wrote. This described the ability to detect by the Holy Spirit whether an apostle or prophet was truly speaking by the Holy Spirit or by Satan. There were false apostles and false prophets in Paul’s day, and God gave the early church people who could discern between the counterfeit imposters and the real thing.

Finally, “To another the interpretation of tongues.” The gift of interpretation gave the person the ability, not to speak in tongues and foreign languages, but by the Spirit to understand any foreign language spoken by a person with the gift of tongues and then be able to clearly explain to the church what was said by that person.

1 Corinthians 12:29-31: “Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.”

All seven questions in verse 29 and 30 have the same answer: NO. Are all apostles, no. Are all prophets, no. Are all teachers, no. Are all workers of miracles, no. Do all have the gifts of healing, no. Do all speak with tongues, no. Do all interpret, no.

All the members of the Body are not apostles, prophets, teachers, miracle workers, healers, not all can speak in tongues or interpret them.

The Body is not all called to the same thing, and we cannot all have the same gifts as Paul has explained in this chapter, when he wrote “And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body” (12:19-20).

The gift of tongues was being overemphasized by the Corinthians. They were all coveting this gift. Paul was trying to steer them away from this and taught them here that tongues is at the bottom of the list and that they should covet what was better and the best and be thankful if they had one of the “best gifts.” Aim higher is the idea!

“And yet” Paul says here, “shew I unto you a more excellent way.” There is something even higher than this list of gifts that all should strive after and earnestly desire.

So many are fascinated by the miraculous spiritual gifts. They make them the standard for spirituality and try to live by gifts that are no longer in operation today.

But God has a higher and more excellent way for each of us live by, strive after, and carry out our service. This more excellent way is explained in chapter thirteen. And that way is: Faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.