1 Corinthians 12:4

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant... no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Spirit. Now there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are differences of administrations but the same Lord, and there are diversities of operations but the same God which works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man for the profit of all... For by one Spirit we're all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

Before we ever name the gifts, we must settle who gives them, who gets them, why, and when.

Where We Start: The Spirit, Not Our Experience

For the last several months I've been studying this section of 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 to the point that my brain hurts. I confess I feel like I'm on information overload, and I have to be careful not to just regurgitate everything upon you. As I've planned how to work through it, I've struggled even to figure out where to start.

As we talk about the working of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life, it's important that we rely upon the Holy Spirit to direct us and give us insight into His Word. God has chosen to reveal Himself first and foremost through His Son and by His Word, and we want to seek to know Him in that way first.

The Pagan Way of Thinking in the Church

As we considered last week, the Corinthians had allowed the pagan way of thinking to enter the church and govern their practice. Many of the people came out of a paganism that was emotionally driven and thrived on enthusiastic, ecstatic experience. Such intense emotional ecstasy caused the worshippers of these pagan gods to have a euphoric feeling, which they instantly attributed to communion with the deity they worshipped.

If they went to the Temple of Apollo, central in Corinth, or up to the Acrocorinth to the Temple of Aphrodite, they would often experience immoral and sensual things and emotional highs—and those things were instantly attributed to contact with their gods. This wrong thinking easily found its way into the church, because God created us as emotional beings and desires our emotions to be involved in the worship of God. Sadly, it remains today.

Emotion Is Not the Measure of the Spirit

In many churches today a service is regarded as spiritual only if an emotional high has been realized. If you walk away exhilarated, empowered, filled with happiness, or with your heart going pitter-patter, then the Spirit of God must have been there. But is that a good metric for determining whether the Spirit has moved? Clearly not, because emotions can be stirred up and manufactured.

There are counterfeits in the world today—things called spiritual because of an emotional experience that really are not spiritual. This happens predominantly among the immature. If you've served in youth ministry, you've seen it: take a group of youth to a camp surrounded by 400 others, with powerful concert-like worship and teaching geared to stir up emotion, and you begin to breed young believers who think the Spirit only moves when that emotion is present. That is very dangerous, because you can experience the same emotional high at a U2 or Coldplay concert, or through substances.

That's why we even came to call certain alcoholic drinks "spirits"—because they seem to make you feel the same way. Then some say, "I'm drunk in the Spirit," which is not scriptural. They take it from Ephesians 5:18, "do not be drunk with wine which is excess but be filled with the Spirit," and conclude that being filled means being overtaken so that their inhibitions are removed. That is not the work of the Spirit; it's emotions.

Emotions are not in themselves bad, and there is real emotional excitement when we are being used by the Lord. But that excitement does not overtake us or remove all constraint. The Scriptures never describe that in the New Testament. We use a wrong standard when we let a changing, moving emotional high determine whether God has moved.

Let the Bible Define the Experience

In Corinth people were having ecstatic emotional experiences, and whatever was said in the midst of them was exalted as the Word of God simply because of the setting. People would even say, "Jesus is accursed" or "Jesus be damned," and the church said it must be from God. Paul says no, it is not. Much damage has been done in the body of Christ by people who are immature or ignorant of spiritual things.

So the Bible must inform our experience and define it. When we have an experience, we ask, "How do the Scriptures explain this?" We don't take a feeling and say, "You can't prove my feeling wrong." The gifts of the Spirit are not toys to be played with, trifles to be neglected, or trophies to be paraded—they are tools to be employed by the believer.

Question One: Who Gives the Gifts?

Before we get into the gifts themselves—listed here, and in Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter—we need to answer four questions: Who gives the gifts? Who receives them? Why are they given? And when are they given or received?

In verse 1, the word "gifts" is italicized, meaning it's not in the original Greek. The word is pneumatikos—from pneuma, breath or spirit, and the ending -ikos, which speaks of that which is controlled by or belongs to. So Paul says, "Concerning those things controlled by the Spirit." Then in verse 4 he amplifies: "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." The word for "gifts" is charisma, whose root is charis, grace.

So the first thing we learn is that these are gifts of grace. Charisma is used 17 times in the New Testament—11 times of the gifts of the Spirit and 6 times of salvation. Salvation is a gift of grace; we earned nothing. In the same way, the work of the Spirit in the believer is the result of God's grace. Since we received it as a gift, we cannot boast. Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4:7, "What do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did receive it, why do you glory as if you did not?"

Gifts for Service, Empowered by God

Look at verse 5: "There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord." The word is diakonia, from which we get deacon—it means servant. Someone recently asked if we have deacons at Calvary Chapel. We do; they just don't wear a badge. Those serving in children's ministry, the sound booth, PowerPoint, ushering, greeting, the worship team, myself—we are all servants of the Lord, and therefore deacons. So the gifts are given for service.

Verse 6: "There are diversities of operations, but the same God which works all in all." The word is energ─ма, speaking of energy or power. Jesus promised in Acts 1:8, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." God empowers the church by His Spirit to serve and to witness.

Who gives the gifts? Verse 11 is clear: "All these work that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He wills." The New Living Translation puts it, "It is the one and only Holy Spirit who distributes these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have." Verse 7 adds that they are manifested—made clear by God, not hidden so we can't figure them out.

Question Two: Who Receives the Gifts?

Verse 7: "The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man." This is not every pagan or unbeliever; the context is believers. These gifts are given to every believer. There are different gifts for different ministries, energized in different ways, but every believer is gifted by God's Spirit.

These gifts are not an indication of spirituality. In 1 Corinthians 1:7 the Corinthians lacked no spiritual gift, yet in chapter 3 they are called carnal. Gifted, but immature and carnal. So having gifts does not prove someone is "really spiritual." Ephesians 4:7 says, "Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ"—when Jesus ascended, He gave gifts unto men. And 1 Peter 4:10 says, "As every man has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another."

Do all believers have gifts in equal measure? No—the Spirit gives as He wills. Do all believers use their gifts? Unfortunately not. Many don't recognize they have gifts, or recognizing them, don't use them for the edification of the body. But that is exactly why He gifted us.

Question Three: Why Are the Gifts Given?

Verse 7: "given to every man for the profit of all." The New Living Translation says "as a means of helping the entire church"; the NIV and ESV say "for the common good." Gifts are given to be used within the body of Christ, to stir one another up, to bless and build up the church.

Week after week I use the gift God has given me to teach and preach His Word, to stir you up and equip you so that you can use the gifts God has given you to fulfill the ministry. Someone with the gift of encouragement may send you a card; you're encouraged by their gift, and then stirred up to send a card yourself. God uses one person's gifts to encourage another's, building up the body.

Peter says we are to do this "as good stewards of the manifold grace of God"—managing the gifts He gave us to bless the church. Ephesians 4 describes this corporately: "He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith... unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

The result is that we are "no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine," but "speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ." God places gifted people in specific offices to equip other believers, because the work of the ministry is far bigger than one gifted individual. The gifts are not given to identify the truly spiritual, to lord over others, to boast or parade, to cause envy, or to hoard—they are for the mutual edification of the body.

Question Four: When Are the Gifts Received?

This is the most touchy part, and we'll cover much more in the weeks ahead. Traditionally there have been two schools of thought. In the evangelical church you may hear the phrase "the baptism of the Holy Spirit," and even be asked, "Have you received the baptism of the Holy Spirit?"

The first thing to recognize is that in Scripture the Holy Spirit is never the baptizer; He is always the element by which we are baptized. In Matthew 3:11, John the Baptist says, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that comes after me is mightier than I... he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Jesus is the baptizer; the Holy Spirit is the element. Mark 1:8 and Luke 3:16 say the same.

About that "fire": some teach it is the fire of the Spirit as on Pentecost, but the next verse explains it as the fire of judgment—"his fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor... but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." There are only two kinds of people: those Jesus has baptized with His Holy Spirit, and those who will one day be judged by His fire. John 1:33 again identifies Jesus as the one "which baptizeth with the Holy Spirit."

No "Second Blessing"

It has been taught that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is an event subsequent to conversion—a "second blessing." One may have a very real experience and call it that, but our experiences must be defined by Scripture, and Scripture nowhere uses the term "baptism of the Holy Spirit" with the Spirit as the baptizer.

You might say, "I went forward at a Harvest Crusade in 1992 and was born again, but it wasn't until a retreat ten years later that the Holy Spirit came upon me." We must hold that experience up against Scripture. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:13, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body... and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." The word "all" means everyone, and "by" is the Greek en—we are baptized in or with one Spirit into one body.

When were you brought into the body of Christ? At conversion. So at conversion you were also baptized with the Holy Spirit, because 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19 tell us believers are the temple of the one Holy Spirit. After the resurrection, in John 20:21–22, Jesus said, "Peace be unto you... receive ye the Holy Spirit," and breathed on them. They were born again by the Spirit. Jesus told Nicodemus, "You must be born again... that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." All Christians at conversion are baptized by Jesus with the Holy Spirit, who now resides in them. You have all the Holy Spirit you will ever need.

Why This Matters

The second-blessing teaching is not biblical, and it creates a caste system within the body—a class of the empowered and the inept, the spiritual elite and those who "haven't got there yet." I am always skeptical of doctrines that create division and make different kinds of Christians. That doesn't mean every doctrine with a hint of division is wrong; we must test everything by Scripture. But hyper-Pentecostalism does this in one direction—and hyper-Calvinism does it in the other, dividing "normal Christians" from those who supposedly truly understand grace. Both are unscriptural.

The Manifestation Comes by Yielding

So how do we explain being born again on one date and then later experiencing the manifestation of the Spirit's work? That work, expressed through the gifts, comes when we yield ourselves to the Spirit's governance of our lives. He already dwells in us and has gifted us with great power.

In Luke 24:49 Jesus said, "Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you... but tarry ye in Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high." The Greek enduo (from en and duo)—as my friend Justin Alford, a Greek scholar, explained to me—speaks of a power within you that will be manifested from the inside out. Jesus says, in effect, "Wait until that power already in you is manifested, and then you will be witnesses unto me." He had breathed on them to receive the Holy Spirit; they were already gifted and filled.

Every believer has been baptized in the Holy Spirit and gifted at conversion. You may say, "I don't have any gifts." Yes you do—you may simply not have recognized or used them. "My gifts aren't like yours." No, they're not; God gifted you specifically for the task He's called you to. In a few weeks we'll see that we are all parts of one body—some more visible, like the hands, feet, and mouth, and some have bigger mouths than others—but other parts are unseen and far more vital, and without them the body cannot function.

Yield the Withheld Areas

When we yield ourselves to God and walk in the Spirit, we experience the fullness of His filling, and He animates our lives. Even those exercising their gifts today have areas they've not yielded—perhaps an area of sin where you keep failing. The reason you have no victory there is that you've not released it to the Holy Spirit. Does releasing it mean you'll instantly be finished with it? No, because He sanctifies us over time by His Spirit and His Word.

So what is the experience some call a second blessing? They are not receiving anything new from God; they are witnessing the manifestation of the Spirit's power as they obediently submit to His will. Perhaps at a retreat you ask for prayer, longing to see God work in your life, and you begin to experience transformation. What happened? You yielded to the work of the Spirit—something He has wanted to do for a long time.

So we daily submit ourselves to Him and let Him work, because we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. There are not different classes of Christians, the elite and the rest. Yes, we need to pray—but what we should pray is that we would allow the Spirit of God to work in us as He desires.

Develop the Gifts You've Been Given

If you are a Christian today, you have been baptized by Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit, and you are gifted by God to do the work of the ministry. Does that mean you fully and perfectly function in your gift? No—gifts need to be developed. God has given me the gift of teaching, but the first day I recognized it, teaching junior high in February of 1999, I wasn't very good at it. God gives us the raw materials, and we develop them to walk in what He's called us to.

So we have to ask: are we using the gifts God has graciously given us, or have we buried them? You may say, "I don't even know what my gifts are." Then you'll have to come back next week so we can consider them together.

Closing Prayer

Father, we need Your grace and wisdom to walk through these things and understand them, but we thank You, Lord, that You've made it clear. Thank You that You desire that we would know Your character and Your will. Lord, we want to be a church that sees the gifts of the Spirit exercised in our daily lives, effectively doing the work that You've called us to and equipped us for. Help us to submit ourselves to what Your Word says, to define our experiences by what Your Word says, and to walk in the light of the truth that You've revealed. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.