1 Corinthians 12 - Introduction

IX. On Spiritual Gifts. Chaps. 12-14.

We have here one of the richest and most interesting parts of our Epistle. These Chapter s are to us like a revelation of the power of that spiritual movement which went forth from Pentecost, and of the wonderful spiritual efflorescence which at the outset signalized the new creation due to the power of the gospel.

The link which connects this passage with the two preceding is certainly the common idea of public worship; this comes out particularly in chap. 14, where the apostle treats of the exercise of spiritual gifts in the assemblies of the Church; now that chapter is the conclusion to which the two previous ones point. At the same time there is progress from the two subjects, treated in chap. 11 to this third: the first, that of chap. 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 (the demeanour of women in the assemblies), was of a more external nature; the second, chap. 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 (the abuses in the Holy Supper), already went much deeper. The passage chaps. 12-14 comes to what is more vital in the worship of the Church; the subject in question is the Holy Spirit Himself and His Divine manifestations. The Spirit, in the Christian community, may be compared to the nervous fluid in the human body. Thus it is that the apostle advances from the external to the internal.

What general idea ought we to form of the spiritual forces treated in this passage? We mean those new powers which in the apostle's writings often bear the name χαρίσματα, gifts of grace, which the Holy Spirit developed within the Church, and about which we have already stated our view, 1 Corinthians 1:7. The term χάρισμα indicates rather their origin, the word πνευματικά (1 Corinthians 14:1) their essence. But for that very reason the former of these expressions has a wider meaning: for it may denote in general everything we owe to the Divine favour.

The Church is the body of Christ, the apostle tells us (1 Corinthians 12:27), that is to say, the organ which the glorified Christ since His departure has created on the earth to realize His design and carry out His purposes, as He formerly did by means of His body, strictly so called, when He was here below. This glorified Christ Himself dwells in believers by His Spirit, who thereby become His active members; and the action which He carries out through them proceeds from the extraordinary forces which He communicates to them. But these new powers may have their point of attachment in natural talents. It is even most frequently the case that the operation of the Spirit fits in to natural aptitudes; He impresses on them a higher direction, a new bent to the service of God, and He exalts their power by consecrating them to this sublime object.

But so long as the spiritual man, who possesses any of these gifts, has not reached absolute holiness, his personal consecration, and consequently that of his gift, remains still imperfect. Hence arises the possibility of the deterioration of the spiritual forces, either in their use or in their inward essence, by selfishness, pride, vanity, hypocrisy, falsehood, jealousy, or hatred. Was not this what the apostle himself, 2 Corinthians 7:1, called defilement of the Spirit?

Now this is exactly what happened at Corinth, and in the most serious manner. The members wished to shine, to take the lead, to surpass one another by means of those spiritual manifestations; they sought those particularly which took the most surprising forms, and they disdained those which, though less showy, were yet the most practical and useful. In this we recognise thoroughly the Greek mind, which turns everything to amusement, even things the most serious; those children everlastingly, ἀεὶ παῖδες, as one of their own has called them; comp. 1 Corinthians 16:21.

The principal error which misled the Corinthians and produced their spiritual ignorance (1 Corinthians 12:1) on this subject, seems to have consisted in this: they imagined that the more the influence of the Divine Spirit deprived a man of his self-consciousness and threw him into an ecstasy, the more powerful was that influence and the more sublime the state to which it raised the man; whereas the more the inspired person retained his self-possession, the less did his inspiration partake of a Divine character. From this point of view, the teacher was far beneath the prophet, and the prophet beneath him who spoke in tongues. Their rule was: the more πνεῦμα (Spirit), the less νοῦς (intelligence). This judgment accorded with Greek and even Jewish prejudices (see Heinrici, pp. 352-357). Plato said in the Phaedrus: “It is by madness (the exaltation due to inspiration) that the greatest of blessings come to us;” and in the Timaeus he says: “No one in possession of his understanding has reached Divine and true exaltation.” The numerous sayings of Philo expressing the same thought are well known; and certain sayings of the Old Testament regarding the influence of the Spirit, when it took hold of the prophets, may have given countenance to such an interpretation; comp. Numbers 24:4 (Balaam); Amos 3:8; Hosea 9:7, etc.

How was it possible to set about the disciplining of such forces, which, from their very origin, a Divine impulse, seemed to escape from the control of the intellectual judgment and to defy all rule? The Pythia obeys only the god who subjects her to his will; the inspired one is above all remark and admonition: The Spirit impels me; what answer can be made to that? The task which the apostle now undertakes is the most difficult and delicate of all that were imposed on him by the state of the Corinthian Church. He has to bank in the most impetuous of torrents. He will require, it is easy to see, all his wisdom and dexterity, and will require to put forth more than ever the apostolic gift which has been conferred on him for the government of the Church.

He begins, in chap. 12, by ascending to the loftiest principles which govern this mysterious and profound region. In chap. 13 he points out to the Corinthians the beneficent genius under whose patronage spiritual gifts should always be placed to exercise a salutary influence, viz. love. After having thus paved the way for the result he desires to reach, he passes, in chap. 14, to the practical treatment of the subject, and lays down some precise and even finical rules for the advantageous exercise of these gifts, particularly those of prophecy and speaking in tongues. After the principles developed in chap. 12 and 13, these rules do not seem to be imposed by authority; they spring, as it were, of themselves from the conscience of the Church, now sufficiently enlightened.

Chrysostom complained even in his day of the obscurity of these Chapter s; he explained it by the fact that the circumstances to which this whole treatment applied no longer existed in the Churches of his time. We are still further removed from the apostolic age and from the extraordinary manifestations which characterized it. But the living forces of which the apostle speaks are not entirely withdrawn from the Church, they ought to accompany it to the end of its earthly career (1 Corinthians 13:10-12). They appear only in another form, so that the study to which we now proceed will not have a merely archaeological interest, but is capable of assuming a present and practical value for every believer and especially for every pastor.

The efforts of certain critics (Baur, Räbiger, etc.) to connect the following discussion, in one way or another, with the opposition between the different parties which divided the Church of Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:12), have not issued in any probable result. The text offers no data fitted to favour the hypotheses made in this direction.

I. General Survey of the Domain of Spiritual Gifts. Chap. 12.

In the first three verses of this chapter, the apostle sets himself to mark out rigorously the domain of which he is about to treat, distinguishing it strictly from the analogous, but alien, religious manifestations, with which it might be confounded, and uniting by a common bond all the various manifestations which belong to it.

III. Practical Rules for the Exercise of Gifts. Chap. 14.

In chapt. 1 Corinthians 12:31 Paul had recommended the seeking of spiritual gifts, as the inference from the whole discussion of chap. 12; then he had passed to the cardinal recommendation: in all things walk in charity. Now he comes to the more special practical directions which he has to give in regard to the exercise of gifts, and it is from charity that he draws the general rule whence he makes them all flow.