1 Corinthians 12

     Corinth was a very diverse place.  The church made converts from every social strata, every culture and religion.  They were fractious and competitive.  Thus Paul’s appeal for the unity of the one body.

     Chapters 12-14 deal with gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Consider the following sketchy background to this divisive subject:

     1.  Jesus promised the chosen witnesses to his teaching and resurrection that miraculous signs would accompany them as proof of the divine nature of the new revelation.  These signs confirm their testimony, which is given to us in the Scriptures (Mark 16:14 ff., esp. v.20; cf.1 Cor.2:4).   In short, the signs were confirmation of the word, which is now complete (John 5:36; 10:37-38, 15:24-27).

     2.  The signs were confirmation of a true apostle (2 Cor.12:12; Acts 2:22,43; 5:12; 8:18; 14:3; 15:12).

     3.  When the word the signs confirmed was complete, and the apostles through whom the word and the signs came were gone, the visible miraculous signs ceased (Heb.1:1-2, 2:3-4).  Notice Acts 8:12-18.  At Samaria, the evangelist Philip had the gifts to do signs and great miracles so as to convince even Simon the great magician (13), but Philip could not give these gifts to others.  The Holy Spirit only came in this way when the apostles themselves (Peter and John) came and laid their hands on the people (17-18).  See chapter 1:1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF),  “…Holy Scripture…most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.”

     4.  False wonders can delude men, but they can only lead away from the truth once delivered (Jude 3; Gal.1:6-10).  They do not promote the glory of God, but of men (Mt.24:24; John 7:18, 8:49-50; 2 Cor.11:12-15; 2 Thess.2:9-12).

     The following is from the Prefatory Address to King Francis I of France:  John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Westminster Press, 1960.  

     The Roman Catholic antagonists tried to represent the reformation as the introduction of novelty, a new revelation.  They demanded what new miracles the reformers had, to authenticate their new gospel.  Calvin pointed out the wrong of this, and the hypocrisy of it.  “In demanding miracles of us, they act dishonestly.  For we are not forging a new gospel, but are retaining the very gospel whose truth all the miracles that Jesus Christ and his disciples ever wrought serve to confirm.  But, compared with us, they have a strange power: even to this day they can confirm their faith by continual miracles!”

     “…those ‘miracles’ which our adversaries point to in their own support are sheer delusions of Satan, for they draw people away from the true worship of their God to vanity.”  (Cf. Deut.13:1-5).

     Such vanity was already at work in Corinth, even where the gifts were not delusions.  That which was meant to build up the body of Christ was becoming a source of envy, pride, and division.

     12:1-2.  Dumb idols; see margin ref., esp. Ps.115:4-8.

     12:3.  This kind of change of mind and testimony about who Jesus is, is the first and greatest work of the Holy Spirit in a man.  The spiritual gifts were a blessing, but this is a work of new creation (2 Cor.5:17).  Of course the mere words can be said in pretense, but cf. Php.1:15-18.  Souls have been brought to salvation by preachers who didn’t believe a word of what they preached.  It is not the preacher who saves, but the Word of God and the Spirit of God (cf.1 Cor.9:27).

     12:4-11.  Vv.7 and 11 are key verses here.  Paul seems to mix together miraculous gifts and natural graces or abilities.  After all, it is the same God who works all things in all persons (6).

     12:8.  These two graces, wisdom and knowledge, are related but different.  The man with knowledge may have little wisdom, and the wise man is greatly handicapped without knowledge.  Blessed indeed is the man with both for the common good (7).  In Christ himself “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col.2:2-3; cf. Ps.85:10).

     12:12-27.  In Paul’s plea for unity and cooperation among the diverse members of the mystical body of Christ, he shows how analogous it is to the human body.

     12:28-31.  An organization is an organized body, and in all such bodies there is a hierarchy of order.  All members and their gifts are important, but they do have a ranking from greater to lesser (28).  Greater gifts are given to those who earnestly desire them (31,14:1).  This implies that spiritual gifts, like everything else in life, need to be developed by desire and hard work, and especially the greater ones do.

     Signs and wonders, and all kinds of miraculous gifts were a blessing, but Paul seeks to move them beyond these things to a more abiding and excellent way (31, 13:13).