1 Corinthians 12
Butler32. It is not an easy matter to be drawn from the love of this world, and this is that which God mainly requires of his children. And if in the midst of afflictions they are sometimes subject to this disease, how would it grow upon them with ease and prosperity? When they are beaten from one worldly folly or delight, they are ready to lay hold upon some other, being thrust out from it at one door to enter at some other. Thus, it is clear, there is great need of afflictions, yea, of many afflictions, that the saints be chastened by the Lord, that they may not be condemned with the world. L.
1. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know 2 that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Where- 3 fore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus 4 accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now 5 there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administra- 6 tions, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God 7 which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit 8 withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of 9 knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of 10 healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another dices kinds of tongues; to another the interpre- 11 tation of tongues: but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every 12 man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the 13 members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we 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.
14. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the 15 hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, 16 Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the 17 whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were 18 the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it 19 hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are 20 they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no 21 need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more 22 those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: and those mem- 23 bers of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abun- 24 dant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant 25 honour to that part which lacked: that there should be no schism in the body; but that 26 the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with 27 it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.
28. And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of 29 tongues. Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? 30 Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? But covet 31 earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.
As warmth is inseparable from fire and brightness from light, so are the qualities of hallowing and giving life, of goodness and rectitude, inseparable from the Spirit. It is He that fills angels and archangels, hallows powers, gives life to all. Distributed to creatures, and variously shared by each, he is nowise diminished by those that share him. To all he gives the grace which proceeds from him, but he is not spent on his receivers; on the contrary, while they that take him are filled, he himself lacks nothing. He illuminates all men for the knowledge of God; he inspires prophets; he gives wisdom to lawgivers, perfects just men, gives dignity to the self-controlled, works gifts of healing, gives life to the dead, releases the fettered, adopts the aliens into worship. This he works through the birth from above. Through him the weak become strong, and the poor rich, and the unskilled in argument are wiser than the wise. He abides in heaven, and fills the earth, and is everywhere present, and nowhere circumscribed. He dwells entire in each one, and is entire with God. He does not administer his gifts ministerially, but distributes his graces with sovereign power. For he divides to each severally as he wills. Basil.
The Church may well be compared to a garden variegated with flowers of every species and clime; to an anthem, in which the highest and deepest tones blend in wonderful harmony; to a body, whose members have each its particular form and function, yet are ruled by the same head, permeated by the same blood, and subservient to the same end. In this very diversity of divine endowments must we adore the inexhaustible wisdom and grace of the Lord. The unbiased contemplation of this unity in diversity and diversity in unity should free us from all exclusiveness and bigotry, and raise us to a genuine liberality and catholicity of thought and feeling. P. S.
3-6. In this chapter Paul sets himself to discuss spiritual gifts and inspiration. First, he lays down a broad general principle respecting spiritual inspiration; secondly, he determines the place and value of different degrees of spiritual inspiration. He lays down the general principle respecting inspiration in the third verse: “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” This made the broad separation between the Christian Church and the Gentile world. F. W. R.
4. Diversities of gifts.** Gregory the Great says: “The Almighty has acted with the souls of men as he has with the different countries of the earth. He might have given fruits of all kinds to every land; but, if every land did not require the fruits of another, there would be no fellowship maintained with the others. Hence it comes to pass that to one he gives what the other has not, and the latter supplies what the former wants, and so the separated lands are united by a communication of gifts. And, like different countries, the souls of saints are related to productions—they are all united together in one love.” Thus Gregory points out how the inequality and diversity among men is necessary and ordained by God; that to wish to make all things externally equal would be a mutilation of nature and a destruction of divine arrangement; but that the love that proceeds from the gospel equalizes all from within, as all the inequalities founded in nature, or springing out of the relations of life, ought to be materials for the expression and preservation of love. N.
But the same Spirit. There is an essential difference in all lives, and there is in them also, by the gift of God, an essential unity. There is a difference in them because there is a unity; because, that is, they are not bounded by that which falls under our present notice, which is fragmentary, imperfect, half suppressed, but pass on to the more immediate presence of God, where all that has been blessed by his Spirit coexists in absolute harmony and power. B. F. W.
7. While the Spirit is of one nature, yet many are the excellences which in the name of Christ he works out. For he uses one man’s tongue to utter wisdom, illuminates another’s soul with prophecy, to another gives ability to interpret the divine Scriptures. One man’s self-control he strengthens, another he teaches how to give alms, another to discipline himself, another to despise the interests of the body; another he prepares for martyrdom; differently in each case, but not diverse from himself, as it is written, “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” Cyril of Jerusalem.—The loftiest gifts, the most conspicuous position, have no other purpose than that which the lowliest powers in the obscured corner are meant to subserve. The one distributing Spirit divides to each man severally as he will; and whether he endows him with starlike gifts, which soar above and blaze over half the world with luster that lives through the centuries, or whether he set him in some cottage window to send out a tiny cone of light that pierces a little way into the night for an hour or two and then is quenched—it is all one. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man for the same purpose—to do good with. And we have all one office and function to be discharged by each in his own fashion, namely, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. A. M.
12. The whole human body is admirably arranged for growth and vigor. Every member and joint contributes to its healthful and harmonious action. All depend on the head with reference to the most important functions of life, and all derive their vigor from that. So it is in the Church. It is well arranged for growth and vigor, and it is beautifully organized in its various members and officers. It depends, moreover, on Christ as the head, to sustain, invigorate, and guide it. A. B.
13. Baptized.** There is an inward work on the soul—a work of power and love, of quickening and life-warm energy, of transforming, yet of ordinary grace—which is called a baptism, doubtless because the baptism by water is its appointed symbol. This inward work of the Spirit, whenever effected through the word of God, and the holy light which this word sheds around the mind, may, with truth and force, be called a baptism. Now, the whole of this connection is figurative speech; that is, the literal human body—animated, of course, by the living human soul—is used as a strong figure of the mystical body of Christ, filled with that Holy Spirit by whom its members are cemented into indissoluble union. Hence, doubtless, the baptism spoken of is that inward baptism of the Holy Ghost, which has its appointed symbol indeed in the baptism by water, but which, as we have so often seen, has no connection with it as its operated result. The true force of the passage may be thus expressed in paraphrase: “By one divine Spirit, all real Christians, of whatever nation or name, are closely united as members in that one spiritual body, of which Christ is the head; and this work of the Spirit may be called a baptism, because it has its appointed symbol in that primary Christian ordinance.” J. S. S.
13. By one Spirit into one body.** Union in Christ they have that are indeed Christians; this they pretend to have who profess themselves Christians. If natural friendship be capable of that expression, one spirit in two bodies, Christian union hath it much more really and properly. For there is, indeed, one Spirit more extensive in all the faithful; yea, so one spirit, that it makes them up into one body more extensive. They are not so much as divers bodies, only divers members of one body. L.
14. There are different members, and all have not the same office. Some are there to teach—some to counsel and administer—some to tend the young—some to visit the sick-bed—some to conduct the temporal affairs of the Church—some to be liberal givers as God has prospered them—and some, without any formal mode of action, come under this description, which applies to them all, “Sons of God, without rebuke, shining as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life.” It is very beautiful to see how the God, who has bound his world into a grand harmony by its very diversity, has arranged for this same end in his Church, by giving the members their different faculties of work—how the pure light that comes from the sun breaks into its separate hues when it touches the palace-house of Christ with its varied cornices and turrets till every color lies in tranquil beauty beside its fellow. If it is not so it should be so, and as the Church grows it will be so. Use and ornament, the corner-stone and the copestone, shall both be felt to have their due place. Ker.
17. Not only is the life of the body one thing, in whichever of the members it operates, but also the members conspire together to one end. In fetching and reaching anything, the design is formed by the brain; the object is seen by the eye; the feet are made to walk in that direction; the hands subsequently are raised to grasp the object. Combination for one purpose is quite as obvious in the whole procedure as the interpenetration of the entire body by one life. E. M. G.
20,21. The impression which the apostolic Epistles give us of a Christian congregation is that of a body so organized as that each and every member is made useful to the whole body, and the particular gift which God bestows upon the weakest and most insignificant is so appreciated and applied, that “the head” or “the eye”—the most intelligent or most discerning—can not say to that weak member, “I have no need of thee.” N. M.
22. As the apostle has spoken in the whole chapter of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, since it is with reference to these that he distinguishes the members of the Church as strong and feeble, we may present the idea of the apostle in this form. The gifts of the Holy Spirit which are the most feeble are also the most necessary. The gifts that are more feeble are humility, by which a believer abases himself before God and regards others as more excellent than himself; fidelity, which will not be unjust in the smallest any more than in the greatest things; purity of manners and of thought, which keeps undefiled the temple where the Holy Spirit deigns to dwell; truth, which would not for the greatest bribe open its lips to the slightest falsehood; contentment, which bears all losses without a murmur, because its real treasure can not be taken from it; activity, which remembers that the kingdom of God consists not in words but in deeds; charity, not charity factitious, borrowed, learned by heart, but a true love, a tenderness of soul, which alternately pities and consoles, soothes and beseeches, which can not revile or despise, which bears all things, excuses all things, which rejoices not in iniquity but rejoices in the truth. A. V.
24. To regard the business attaching to any station of life as insignificant is as unreasonable as it is unscriptural. Paul says of the human body, that God has “given honor to those members which lacked.” The same may be said of society. Its whole fabric and framework is built up of humble duties accurately fulfilled by persons in humble stations. The Scripture, with that wonderful penetration into the thoughts of man which characterizes its every page, has taken care to set the seal of dignity and sacredness upon those callings and employments which are lowest in the social scale. E. M. G.—If I am faithfully serving Christ, does it really so much matter whether my hand holds a scepter, a pen, or a spade—whether I touch thousands every day or only shillings and pence—whether I meet many people or only few—whether my house is large or small—whether my name is famous or utterly unknown? It is but “a little while,” and the stir and tumult of life, be it in high or low degree, will be over, the drudgery all gone through, the commonness ended in the shining of eternal sublimity. Not where I am, but what I am, and, still more, what I am becoming, is the thing! Not what I do, but how I am doing it! Not high or low in earthly place and estimate, but high or low in purpose, tone, temper! If anything of nobler outward aspect can be inserted into your life, well. If you can have the seeming commonness associated and relieved with something visibly greater and better—some new task, endeavor, friendship, possibility—well. But if not, we say again, call not that life which God in his infinite wisdom has appointed for you, which by his great redeeming act he has purified, which from the roll of his providence is unfolding itself under his very eye, which is quick with the stirrings of his Spirit, which has the seeds of immortal glory in its bosom—call it not common. It is great, unless you make it little; it is good, unless you make it evil. A. R.
26. The spirit and the law of the life of Christ is to be that of every member of the Church, and the law of the life of Christ is that of sympathy. F. W. R.—And this living sympathy is in every living member of the body of Christ toward the whole and toward each particular part. This makes a Christian rejoice in the welfare and good of another as if it were his own, and feel their griefs and distresses as if himself were really sharer in them; for the word comprehends all feeling together, feeling of joy as well as of grief. And always where there is most of grace and of the Spirit of Jesus Christ there is most of this sympathy. When the heart can unfeignedly rejoice in the Lord’s bounty to others, and the luster of grace in others far outshining their own, truly it is an evidence that what grace such a one hath is upright and good, and that the law of love is engraven in his heart. And where that is there will be likewise a compassionate, tender sense of the infirmities and frailties of their brethren. L.
27. Under this striking and beautiful symbol of the body is set forth the unity, the harmony, the proportionate and coöperative efficiency of the Church of Christ. That equality of the brotherhood which our Lord laid down as a fundamental principle in the constitution of his Church does not imply equality of function or of official place and work. In primitive times, when miraculous gifts were widely shared by the Church, there were marked diversities in those gifts, and in the official position of persons thus endowed. And now the equality of the brotherhood does not displace the divine law of arrangement, distribution, adaptation in the body. For the Church is not a society, it is a body; and the equality of its members consists first in the fact of membership in Christ, their common head; next in community of privileges; next in dependence upon one another for sympathy and support; next in coöperation toward the same end, under the authority and direction of the one head. And the humblest may now obtain the greatest gifts, which in the next chapter the apostle defines to be faith, hope, charity. J. P. T.
28. The miraculous gifts imparted to many in the early Church are carefully ranked and marked by the hand of the apostle as inferior to those gifts which were “for edification and exhortation and comfort.” “And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.” Here miracle-working, healing, and speaking with divers tongues are set as inferior gifts to those whereby men were constituted teachers or prophets. Arthur.—All these are engaged in the work of the ministry, though in different departments. Together they constituted the ministry by which Christ meant to establish and edify the Church; but the offices of prophets and apostles were not designed to be permanent. A. B.
Prophets, teachers. All offices, whether for the government or edification of the body, were considered as charisma—gifts of the Spirit. Persons who were designated by their peculiar natural powers, as quickened and directed by the Spirit, for the discharge of their functions, were appointed to fulfill them. Among the gifts of the Spirit was that of teaching. There was a class of persons who showed themselves specially adapted to speak in a moving and instructive way, and these were recognized as having a divine call to this service. They were not elders, though elders might teach, and late in the apostolic age teaching came to be considered a necessary part of an elder’s work. But teaching was free in the apostolic churches, in the sense that whoever felt himself impelled by an inward impulse to address his brethren might do so at the proper time in the service. The gift of prophecy was not a foretelling of future events, but rather a fervid outpouring of Christian truth, it might be in the form of exhortation. The “teacher” expounded doctrine in the exercise of reflection, and as a fruit of the study of the Old Testament Scriptures, though under an illumination from above. The utterances of the “prophets” were more improvised, and thus adapted to seize on the attention and thrill the mind even of a pagan auditor who chanced to enter the Christian assemblies. The addresses of the “teacher” were in the form of didactic instruction; those of the “prophet” were hortatory, or at least predominantly emotional. These last might spring from an extravagant zeal or enthusiasm, and contain an admixture of hurtful error. Hence there were persons competent to discern spirits, or to discriminate between what should be considered divine truth and what should be rejected.
Miracles. Including the power to heal diseases without the intervention of the ordinary
means of cure. Illustrations of the exercise of these powers are presented in the book of Acts; but they were not specially called into activity in the assemblies for worship.—Thus, in the apostolic church, all the functions of government, as well as of teaching, were in the hands of those who were conscious of acting as the organs of a Power above themselves, by whom they were singled out, each of them for his particular work. It was a community lifted up to this high pitch of earnestness. It was, to use the apostle’s simile, a body, every member of which served every other, and was served in turn by all. G. P. F.