1 Corinthians 12:1-3

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; Galatians 1:8-9); and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit. It is not of ordinary utterances that this is said, or could be; for many that have not the Spirit of Christ, and are none of His, are ready enough to call Jesus “Lord” (Matthew 7:22), while some who in their inmost souls adore Him may, like Peter, in a moment of temptation, come near to cursing Him. It is of divinely inspired utterances that this is said. For such to curse Christ would amount to a deliberate and reckless denial of Him this, says the apostle, is impossible. But equally certain is it that that inspiration which recognises and bows to Him as Lord, can have no other than a Divine source can proceed only from the Holy Ghost. See 1 John 4:1-3, where the same sentiment is repeated in a slightly different and more expanded form. We have a remarkable illustration of this statement in a case where no inspiration is supposed to exist. We refer to the celebrated letter of Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan (about A.D. 110), during a persecution of the Christians which that emperor had ordered in which Pliny asks instructions how to proceed against those accused of being Christians. In this letter, that eminent man explains in detail how he had already acted in this difficult matter. When some who were brought before him denied that they were or ever had been Christians, he tested them by making them perform acts of worship to the gods and the emperor's own image; and as a last test, he ordered them to curse Christ, which (he was told) none who were real Christians could be made to do; and if they were prepared eyen to do that, he thought they might be safely dismissed.

[3] The four oldest MSS. give this as a direct speech, and so in the second clause.