'For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit, to another faith, in the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healings, in the one Spirit, and to another workings of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another discernings of spirits, to another divers kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.'
His emphasis that all is from God through one Spirit continues, repeated here four times. The gifts are many but the Source and Administrator of them is one. Dogmatism on what exactly each gift consists of is ruled out, for they are not defined or exhaustive. But they are clearly gifts which cover the whole aspect of a church's need for a teaching ministry, and they are being spoken of against what Paul has previously written. From the use of these gifts the church can receive from those so gifted true spiritual wisdom, and true spiritual knowledge, can manifest faith, which will be evidenced by all and strengthens the whole church, and see that faith in action in wonderful ways, experience healings and miracles, receive prophetic guidance, have those who can discern the true Spirit from false ones, speak with 'tongues' in private prayer and experience the interpretation of tongues so necessary if the gift of tongues is ever to be used in the church. All is there that is necessary for a full orbed ministry.
Various ways of looking at these differing gifts have been suggested, but whatever interpretation we put on them must take into account that they are gifts whose purpose is to continually edify the whole church. Thus to limit them to very unusual situations is probably to misunderstand them. And we must consider them in the light of what Paul has previously written. The first two are describing the enlightening of God's people, bringing to them 'wisdom' and 'knowledge'. These remind us of the first two Chapter s of 1 Corinthians where 'wisdom' (1 Corinthians 1:25; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 1 Corinthians 2:6-7) and 'knowing' (1 Corinthians 2:11-12; 1 Corinthians 2:14-16) are prominent, in contrast with false wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:17 to 1 Corinthians 2:9), and false knowledge. There wisdom is finally found in those who come to know the One Who is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:25) and the wisdom from God (1 Corinthians 1:30). It is a wisdom not of this world, a mystery, a hidden wisdom now revealed (1 Corinthians 2:6-7). The message concerning Christ the crucified one was called 'the word of the cross'. In the same way the 'word of wisdom' must surely relate to the same idea. It is in contrast to 'wisdom of word' (sophia logou) and 'persuasive words of wisdom' (sophias logois - 1 Corinthians 2:4), and like Paul's 'word' (1 Corinthians 1:18) here demonstrates the activity of the Spirit. The 'word of wisdom' (logos sophias) indicates divine illumination in understanding about Him Who is the wisdom from God (1 Corinthians 1:30), and in having power from the Spirit in proclaiming the message revealing the fullness of Jesus Christ as the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), causing the light to shine in men's hearts as they come to know Him as He is, so that all may have true wisdom.
The 'word of knowledge' would seem to be in contrast to the claim of some of the Corinthians to 'knowledge' (see 1 Corinthians 8:1; 1 Corinthians 8:10). Their knowledge was something that they boasted in and which led them into actions which could harm the body of Christ. But this 'word of knowledge' is surely therefore referring to the divinely given ability to know and to impart the true knowledge so that the church may be enriched and men may know the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:11-12; 1 Corinthians 2:14). Compare 1 Corinthians 1:5 where Paul speaks of them as being 'enriched in all utterance and all knowledge'. This is not speaking just of any preaching, but of inspired preaching in which the Spirit is the inspirer of the preacher so that he goes beyond his normal abilities revealing knowledge opened up to him by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:11-16). A man may win an award as preacher of the year without knowing anything of the word of wisdom or the word of knowledge. But he cannot be a true preacher of the Gospel without experiencing both.
'Faith.' Many combine as a threesome 'faith', 'gifts of healings' and 'workings of miracles', and see 'faith' as describing an especially deep faith which can make things happen, like the faith of Elijah (James 5:17-18). That that is part of it we do not doubt. But James sees that as a faith similar to that resident also in the elders of the church (James 5:15), and he would probably have added in all Christians. Thus there is good cause for suggesting that 'faith' here is that faith which stands not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:5). It is the Spirit's gift given to all true Christians, first of all founding them in faith, and then resulting in their exercising that faith in fulfilling the purposes of God in both small ways and great, including the proverbial moving of mountains (1 Corinthians 13:2).
This would then tie 'faith' in with the previous two gifts as indicating that the response of faith to the first two gifts is also a gift of the Spirit, resulting in a God-sustained life of faith, and the blessings which come from the exercise of such faith. All Christians exercise Spirit-inspired faith, God's gift to His own, some more than others, and such faith builds up the church and brings honour to God. We must not underestimate the divine wonder of true responsive faith even in its basic form.
Jesus in His teaching constantly spoke of faith as something that could be exercised in differing degrees by all (Mark 9:23) and does not differentiate one faith from another in essence, only in degree. Faith in Him should result in the ability to exercise faith in all circumstances. Indeed the moving of mountains only requires faith the size of a grain of mustard seed! (Matthew 17:20; compare Luke 17:6). Although such faith could be built up by prayer (Mark 9:29).
It should be noted in this regard that ‘faith' in 1 Corinthians 12:9 is preceded by ‘etero (‘to another') rather than the 'allo (‘to another') which precedes the other gifts, which suggests that it is to be seen as distinctive, even among the gifts. This may be intended to divide the gifts into two, which are specific witnesses to Christ, and seven, beginning with faith, which are manifestations of faith. Two is the number of witness and seven the number of divine perfection. (Unlike today, in those days such use of numbers was not something to be subtly utilised, but a very part of the way people thought. Rather than being mathematical they were descriptive). Thus ‘faith' may be including all that follows (and all gifts) as contained within them all (compare Isaiah 11:2 where ‘of the Lord' is then expanded in the other six gifts).
The whole point of these gifts is that they will be manifested regularly in the church. It would therefore be wrong interpretation to make them so special that they are hardly ever experienced, and all true faith was certainly seen as the gift of God.
Indeed we might from this see a progression. The coming of the word of wisdom enlightening them in Christ, the word of knowledge increasing their understanding of Christ to greater depth, which then results in the strong and well-founded faith that comes from God that can face all assaults of the enemy, and can 'move mountains', and is followed up by divine manifestations in healings and miracles, and inspired proclamation of truth, all resulting from faith.
However that may be the next gifts are of the 'gifts of healings' and 'workings of miracles' which stand together as manifestations of divine power. The early church expected to experience such things among them continually as God confirmed His word with signs following. It is the general lack of these in the New Testament sense in the centuries that followed that gives support to the suggestion that not all the gifts were permanent for all time. They are given as and when He wills. But nevertheless they do spasmodically appear.
The word for 'miracles' is 'powers', which is often used of healing miracles (Matthew 7:22; Matthew 11:20-21; Matthew 11:23; Matthew 13:54; Matthew 14:2; Mark 5:30; Mark 6:2; Mark 9:39; Acts 19:11). Thus the two gifts, as general gifts of the Spirit, may simply reflect different kinds of healings including the exorcism of evil spirits, although exceptionally other kinds of miracles such as nature miracles might be included.
The final grouping is divided into two twosomes, prophecy along with the necessary discernment of spirits so that the prophets can be tested, and tongues along with the interpretation of tongues so that the tongues can be meaningful to the hearers. Some would see prophecy as limited to the recognised 'prophets' approved by the church (1 Corinthians 12:29), others would see it as a more general gift experienced more widely among members of the congregation. In either case it is a speaking forth under divine utterance, which is fully under the control of the speaker (1 Corinthians 14:32). The general impression from what follows in 12-14, and especially from the exhortation to the Corinthians that they should seek the gift of prophecy, is that it is a gift given as the Spirit wills to 'ordinary' members of the church (1Co 14:1; 1 Corinthians 14:31; 1 Corinthians 14:39), although not necessarily permanently. It is not necessarily always a once for all gift and may well have been exercised more frequently by some (the recognised prophets) than by others. We can compare here the example of those who 'prophesied' around the time of the births of John the Baptiser and Jesus (Luke 1:46-55; Luke 1:68-79; Luke 2:29-32; Luke 2:38).
Prophecy is here an inspired forthtelling and exhortation (see Acts 15:32) rather than a foretelling, although the latter did occur at times among the recognised prophets. It would, however, seem that this was only rarely. Agabus appears to be the recognised exception (Acts 11:28; Acts 21:10-11). We can also consider John in Revelation. The gift was to be exercised with restraint (by two or three) and tested by other prophets, a reminder that such inspiration did not necessarily guarantee truth (1 Corinthians 14:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21, compare 1 Corinthians 12:1-3 above). Its purpose was that all may learn and be strengthened (1 Corinthians 14:31). The fact that both men and women would 'prophesy' in abundance was declared by Joel, and confirmed by Peter (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17). But Acts gives us no examples of a special type of prophetic forthtelling of a type which would be common in meetings of Christians which was distinctive from the preaching of those who went forth in the Spirit, reminding us that 'prophecy' is probably to be seen as including true Spirit-inspired, divinely wrought, preaching.
This is not simply to equate prophecy with preaching, for the latter would better come under the heading of 'teaching', which of course should also be Spirit inspired (1 Corinthians 12:28). Such an equation would be totally misleading. It is a manifestation of the Spirit's working, and certainly all preaching is not that. But nor can we simply suggest that there have been no prophetic speakers through the centuries, simply because the form in which they spoke did not conform to our way of seeing it. In mind is rather the forth-telling of truth, by men truly inspired by the Spirit for the purpose, in any form chosen by the Holy Spirit. And the spirit of the prophets was subject to the prophets. And others who hear must judge.
'Discernment of spirits' probably has mainly in mind the discernment as to whether prophecies were of the Spirit or were the work of deceiving spirits (1 Corinthians 14:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21). But it may have included awareness of spiritual deceit generally as in Acts 5:1-10, and discernment in general of other charismata, including tongues. 1 John 4:1 also tells us that we must test/prove the spirits of the prophets (their own inward spirits) as to whether it is the Spirit speaking through them, or a deceiving spirit. There the test is as to whether 'Jesus Christ' is come in the flesh. That is, do they accept that the Christ and the human Jesus, Who came in the flesh as a human being, are one. Do they accept the true humanity of the Christ?
'Tongues' was an expression of worship in unknown tongues, and these were different and varied. Again its manifestation was controllable, and was to be controlled (1 Corinthians 14:27). But Paul saw them as speaking words when they did so (1 Corinthians 14:19) and so clearly thought of them as languages. The only description of their content is in terms of giving thanks to God (1 Corinthians 14:16-17). Paul restricted speaking in tongues specifically to not more than two or at the most three in one meeting (1 Corinthians 14:27), and then only when interpreted, and this was in meetings which could last for several hours. This was to curb their excessive use. He also rejected their public use in meetings unless they were interpreted. When an interpreter was present it could act as a means of ministry, and it was on interpreted tongues that the limit was placed. He gave no approval to public use of uninterpreted tongues. If no interpreter was known to be present they should not be used. Such manifestations were also known among worshippers in other religions, as indeed was a kind of prophecy, and it was therefore necessary to be careful on both accounts.
It is not the same as the tongues in Acts 2 which were in languages recognisable to the hearers and for a specific purpose, which included that they would be understood by the hearers. Paul is quite clear on the fact that the tongues mentioned here are unintelligible to people, whether they are real languages or not. There is no thought that it will be otherwise. 1 Corinthians 13:1 might indicate that he sees the language as heavenly, but there the idea might rather be connected with what the Corinthians thought. He specifically indicates that all do not speak with tongues (1 Corinthians 12:30) any more than all heal. On the other hand it is not to be totally forbidden in public use (1 Corinthians 14:39), as long as it is interpreted (1 Corinthians 14:27). It will come out later that one of his aims will be to prevent an apparent overabundance in the use of tongues in public worship in Corinth, while at the same time not denying its usefulness in public worship, when interpreted, and in private worship.
The interpretation of tongues is a gift of being able to interpret the meaning of unknown tongues spoken publicly (this stresses the fact that the tongues are expected to be unknown tongues). Without such an interpreter present, tongues were not to be so used. He is not necessarily a translator but an interpreter of meaning.
But that this is not intended to be an exhaustive or definitive list of all gifts comes out in that in this whole section of the letter Paul constantly lists gifts, and each time the lists differ. See 1 Corinthians 12:28-30; 1 Corinthians 13:1-3; 1Co 13:8; 1 Corinthians 14:6; 1 Corinthians 14:26. (Compare also Romans 12:4-8; Ephesians 4:11) So to these gifts listed here we could add:
· 'Helps' (1 Corinthians 12:28), possibly referring to the gift given to the outwardly lowly folk like Martha who consistently laboured for others (Luke 10:40, and consider 1 Timothy 5:9-10; 1 Timothy 5:16; Romans 16:2), although we have only the meaning of the word to go by, or the idea may be of those who gave spiritual help to women and possibly youngsters (Titus 2:4-5);
· 'Governments', (or 'those who steer'), which is possibly the gift given to those who saw to the secular affairs of the church or gave God-given guidance in general affairs (1 Corinthians 12:28; compare Romans 12:8 c);
· 'Revelation', which is linked with prophecy, but has precedence, indicating a specific word of instruction from God - 1 Corinthians 14:29-32),
· 'Teaching' (1 Corinthians 14:6; 1 Corinthians 14:26), a gift in instructing others in the truth.
Possibly also we can add 'having goods for giving to the poor' (compare Romans 12:8 b; compare also 1 Corinthians 13:3) and sacrificial living or 'martyrdom' (1 Corinthians 13:3). Romans 12 also adds 'ministry', 'exhortation', 'showing compassion'. His emphasis here is not so much on what the gifts consist of, but on the fact that all such gifts are given for a purpose, the edifying and sustaining of God's people, and he selects the gifts accordingly.
(Note. These gifts are spread throughout the church and reveal themselves in different ways, and we must differentiate them from natural gifts. These are spiritual gifts, gifts of grace, and do not rely on natural abilities, although those with natural abilities will no doubt utilise them wisely when exercising their spiritual gifts, and the gift may well enhance a natural gift. But we must not bind the Spirit to our own particular ideas of how His gifts will operate. Pentecostalists and Charismatics may see them in one way, while others see them in another way. What we must not do is remove the direct link with the Spirit's working. The Spirit is sovereign. We cannot seriously doubt that God has gifted His true people by the Spirit through the centuries, even though not manifested in the way in which some might see it. It is not for us to tell the Spirit what He must do and how He must manifest Himself. We cannot and must not limit Him. He works through people as they are and to some extent in accordance with their temperaments, their environments and their expectations. Had He desired that all be overt Pentecostalists or Charismatics, or not so, He could easily have arranged for it to be so.
It cannot be doubted that in all centuries there have been godly people who were open to His working, and we must remember that the manifestations that came in the early days often came in spite of expectations, not because of them. So why not later? Certainly through the last two thousand years, once the first century AD had passed, the more spectacular gifts were in short supply even though there were godly and deeply spiritual men through whom they could have been manifested had the Spirit purposed to do so, while at the same time the New Testament was established as the final source of revelation and means of guidance and sustenance to the people of God in these 'end days' since Jesus came, which may partly explain it. Yet we can hardly doubt that the Holy Spirit continued to manifest His gifts in some way to God's true people. The growth of the true church continued.
Furthermore, in spite of many claims to the contrary, the gifts of healings and of miracles are quite obviously not permanently manifested today anywhere in the world in the way in which they were manifested in the first century church, and most of such that are overtly claimed can mainly be put down to psychological factors or the body's natural ability to heal, combined with the factors of prayer and faith. It is spiritual healing, not miraculous healing. Jesus healed all who came to Him. There were no exceptions.
Similar to those often described in fact occur among people of many religions and faiths and there do seem to be those who naturally have 'gifts of healing' of a kind. But these are different from the gifts described here which came to those who did not have natural gifts of healing. We can rightly look for such healings, and give thanks for them, but we must not overstate what they are. Spectacular instantaneous healings which cannot be doubted are in very short supply, although apparently not so in the early days. But there were many 'healers' at work in Jesus' day, who also saw 'psychological' healings of the kind described above. The difference, however, between Him and them was that He healed all who came. And some of those which occurred could be described as instantaneous and spectacular, try as He did to prevent them from being so (what a contrast to some 'healers' today). Nothing was able to resist His power. And the early church apparently experienced the same. Would that it were so today, but it is not.
There can also be no real doubt on the one hand that many spurious manifestations are ‘worked up' in these days by human manipulation (as they no doubt were then, but it should be noted that the New Testament never hints at a need for such practises. The Spirit does not need a helping hand). And on the other hand that many spiritual churches flourish without the outward manifestation of spectacular gifts, although certainly not without gifts of the Spirit.
On the other hand we must not deny that genuine manifestations do occur and can bring blessing to many when rightly controlled. And control is one of Paul's specific emphases. The church must be open to whatever the Spirit wills to do, but should especially beware of false manifestations, human imitation, and lack of restraint. Many in some modern day charismatic churches sadly follow the Corinthians into a 'knowledge' which is not Scriptural. In the end the test of all must be that they bring men to appreciation of Scriptural truth. End of note).