Holy Spirit -03- Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Gifts of the Holy Spirit

There is one Holy Spirit. "There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling" (Ephesians 4:4). How ever there are a number of "gifts" of the Spirit. "Now there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:4) . There are at least three classes of these gifts revealed in the Bible-the baptism of the Holy Spirit; the gifts of the Holy Spirit imparted through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, and the gift common to all Christians. Sometimes one is asked if the Holy Spirit had no office in man’s relation to God prior to the gospel dispensation. Indeed so! The prophets of the old dispensation "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 2:21) . But the Spirit’s relation to men changed radically after the Master went back to the Father, so much 80, that previous to the Lord’s glorification the Holy Spirit is not thought of as having been given at all. "But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was- not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:39). Previous to our Lord’s sojourn on the earth "measures" of the Spirit had been received by men, doubt less, but Jesus gives the Spirit without measure. "For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for he giveth not the Spirit by measure" (John 3:34, A. R. V.). In this sense the Holy Spirit had not been given prior to the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Christ. On that day the gospel dispensation began, and it is the manifestations of the Spirit in this dispensation that demands our interest.