_First principle:_ ‘Recognition of “Jesus as the Lord” is an unfailing test of the reality of spiritual gifts.' This is stated both negatively and positively. Ver. 3. WHEREFORE I GIVE YOU TO UNDERSTAND, THAT NO MAN SPEAKING IN (OR ‘BY') THE SPIRIT OF GOD SAITH, JESUS IS ANATHEMA [3] (see Romans 9:3... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:1. NOW CONCERNING SPIRITUAL _gifts_, [1] BRETHREN, I WOULD NOT HAVE YOU IGNORANT. [1] That “gifts,” not “persons,” is the proper supplement here, there can be no reasonable doubt, and chap. 14 confirms it.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:2. YE KNOW THAT WHEN [2] YE WERE GENTILES (heathen), _ye were_ LED AWAY UNTO THOSE DUMB IDOLS, HOWSOEVER YE MIGHT BE LED: ‘As for your gods, they were “dumb idols” which, whatever crafty priests and interested statesmen might say, never uttered a word to their votaries. Our worship,... [ Continue Reading ]
_Second principle:_ ‘Spiritual gifts, though diverse in character, have one Divine source.' Ver. 4. NOW THERE ARE DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS, BUT THE SAME SPIRIT to whose peculiar department it belongs, in the economy of grace, to impart all spiritual gifts. Ver. 5. AND THERE ARE DIFFERENCES OF ADMINIST... [ Continue Reading ]
_Third principle:_ ‘All spiritual gifts are imparted for the common benefit of the body of Christ.' Ver. 7. BUT TO EACH ONE IS GIVEN THE MANIFESTATION OF THE SPIRIT whatever may be his special gift TO PROFIT WITHAL for the common good. Ver. 8. FOR TO ONE IS GIVEN THROUGH THE SPIRIT THE WORD OF WIS... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:11. BUT ALL THESE WORKETH THE ONE AND THE SAME SPIRIT, DIVIDING TO EACH ONE SEVERALLY EVEN AS HE WILL and if so, to set one gift above another, in a spirit of rivalry among their possessors, how offensive must that be! Now follows a graphic illustration of this.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:12. FOR AS THE BODY IS ONE, AND HATH MANY MEMBERS, AND ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE BODY, [1] BEING MANY, ARE ONE BODY; SO ALSO IS CHRIST who with the Church is an organic whole. [1] The received reading, “of the one body,” has very weak support.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:13. FOR IN (OR ‘BY') ONE SPIRIT WERE WE ALL BAPTISED INTO ONE BODY... AND WERE ALL MADE TO DRINK OF [1] ONE SPIRIT. The figure of “drinking” of the Spirit may have been suggested by the allusion to their water baptism at the time of their conversion; only that was external, whereas... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:15. IF THE FOOT SHALL SAY, BECAUSE I AM NOT THE HAND, I AM NOT OF THE BODY; IS IT THEREFORE NOT OF THE BODY? [1] [1] Some excellent critics read this and the following questions affirmatively "it is not therefore not of the body. Winer and Buttmann hold that the interrogative sense... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:17. IF THE WHOLE BODY WERE AN EYE, WHERE WERE THE HEARING? IF... HEARING, THEN WHERE WERE THE SMELLING? How preposterous then this rivalry between different gifts of the one Spirit, different functions of the one body of Christ!... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:18. BUT NOW AS THE CASE STANDS HATH GOD SET THE MEMBERS... EVEN AS IT HATH PLEASED HIM each in his own place, each with his own function, and all of the Lord's sovereign arrangement for His own wise ends.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:19-21 . AND IF THEY WERE ALL ONE MEMBER, etc. As in 1 Corinthians 12:15-16, the rebuke seems to be for _envying_ the gifts of the more eminent, so here the rebuke is addressed to the more gifted for _despising_ those of lesser gifts the “eye” as compared with the “hand,” the “head”... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:22. NAY, MUCH RATHER THOSE MEMBERS... WHICH SEEM... MORE FEEBLE, ARE NECESSARY even more than eyes, hands, feet.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:23. AND THOSE... WE THINK LESS HONOURABLE, UPON THESE WE BESTOW MORE ABUNDANT HONOUR in covering and care AND OUR UNCOMELY PARTS HAVE MORE ABUNDANT COMELINESS to protect them from unjust disparagement in relation to other parts of the body.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:24-26 . WHEREAS OUR COMELY PARTS HAVE NO NEED, etc. The language, it will be observed, is studiously so framed as to apply equally to the natural and the spiritual body.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:27. NOW YE ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST, AND SEVERALLY MEMBERS THEREOF and so what is true of the natural is analogously true of the spiritual body. From the foregoing general statements the apostle now returns, in conclusion, to the specific gifts before enumerated, for the purpose of p... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:28. AND GOD HATH SET SOME IN THE CHURCH, FIRST (some to be) APOSTLES, SECONDLY PROPHETS the prophets of the New Testament (not of the Old Testament), on whose functions see on 1 Corinthians 12:10. They came in order next to the apostles (see Ephesians 2:20). It was at the word of th... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:29-30. ARE ALL APOSTLES, etc. If not, then why suppose that all possess and were intended to exercise every gift, or imagine that this would benefit the Church?... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 12:31. BUT DESIRE EARNESTLY THE GREATER [1] GIFTS referring to those mentioned in chap. 14, which were such as tended to edify both the audience and the gifted themselves, in preference to those which merely evinced supernatural power. But ere this comes to be formally handled, an epis... [ Continue Reading ]