Thoughts on Spiritual Gifts                     Index

I will confine myself to the Bible alone for evidence.  There are two good reasons for this.  First of all, every piece of evidence from  history or from religious experience is suspect; it is mere human evidence and  lacks the authority of Scripture.  Secondly, the evidence of experience is subjective and ambiguous and open to differing  interpretations.  For example, I believe the evidence for modern-day  miracles and spiritual gifts is powerful and convincing.   But that is because I viewed the available evidence with a favorable  mind, believing as I did  that the Bible leads us to expect a continuation of such things until Christ's return.   Another, believing that such things ended with the Apostles, will find the same evidence slim, problematic, and altogether unconvincing.  The way one views  the evidence, then, depends on what one thinks the New Testament leads us to expect concerning supernatural gifts.

Therefore the only real question that need concern us is the question, What does the Bible say about spiritual gifts? With this in mind I will address first a peculiar irony in the author's approach.    He treats chapters 12-14 of First Corinthians as partly relevant for today, but mostly irrelevant.  He professes to find spiritual  principles in these chapters, and even speaks of spiritual gifts as if they  were applicable to the modern church. He has written his  little book because, like Paul,  he does not want us "to be ignorant  about  spiritual gifts."    Then he makes quite clear in later pages that he believes most of the gifts, indeed all of the supernatural gifts, disappeared after the first century.  He offers us no explanation of how he decides which gifts are permanent and which are temporary.  Actually it turns out to be only the supernatural gifts that were temporary.  In this the author reveals and anti-supernatural bias which, to my mind, derives from the modern world-view and has little to do with Scripture. The writer does not want simply to dismiss Paul's excursus on  gifts as altogether irrelevant for today; he professes to find relevance for today. But he offers absolutely no ground for dismissing the supernatural gifts and trying to salvage some meaning to the passage.  It seems rather  impudent to take a passage of Scripture wholly devoted to supernatural events and to apply it partially to our condition minus its most important feature, the supernatural. He professes to find spiritual principles in these chapters that are still relevant. He states that spiritual gifts "are given by God,"  that they are "not just ordinary natural talents," that they are "extraordinary gifts of grace given...at spiritual birth," that every Christian has been given a gift or gifts," and that each of us "needs to discover  his gift and use it for the glory of God." But what on earth  are these gifts? They are neither natural nor supernatural.  They seem to exist  in some strange limbo between the natural and supernatural.

 There  is  further  irony  in  the  title the author gives his little book: Three Profound and Powerful Chapters.  I find this quite ironic because by the time the author gets through with these chapters all the power has gone out of them. Some of  these gifts, we are told, were given temporarily because the New Testament was not yet finished and distributed;  others,  he says, "are permanent gifts meant to edify the church for all ages."  In this declaration the author takes a puzzling liberty with Paul's letter, in which Paul clearly asserts that all the gifts are given "for the common good" (12:7), and  Paul makes absolutely no distinction between  temporary and permanent gifts. In fact, in a passage we will examine later (I Cor. 1:6) Paul says clearly that all the gifts are given to the  church  to  confirm  the  testimony  of  Christ  until  he  comes--that  is,  permanently.

Now let us look at some of the author's assumptions.  Some of the gifts were given provisionally until the New Testament was completed and distributed. But just how soon does the author think the New Testament was available to the common believer so that he would have no need for supernatural aid? Although the New Testament was complete by the last decade of the first century, it was not collected and widely available as a single volume until decades later. Scholars conclude that the canon of the New Testament was settled and generally accepted by the end of  the third century and was finally formalized by the end of  the fourth century. But this does  not mean that the Scriptures were generally available to  ordinary Christians,  except through the medium of an increasingly corrupt church. For all practical purposes  the Scriptures were not readily available to the mass of Christians until the Reformation of the sixteenth century. One must ask what the mere existence of a completed New Testament somewhere would do for Christians to make supernatural knowledge and power dispensable.  For that matter, how does having a New Testament in one's pocket today make God's intervention to confirm the Gospel less desirable or needed?  Does the existence of a Bible, wonderful as it is, take the place of the witness of the Spirit in our hearts?  Does the comfort and guidance of  the of  the written Word take the place of  personal guidance, deliverance from danger, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, that anointing that  teaches us concerning all things, or the perfect law of liberty written on our hearts? No. And there is nothing in the Bible itself that leads one to believe that it was God's stated intention to bring an end to His works of power after the first century.

There is an unstated, maybe even unacknowledged, reason at work here. I refer to the unconscious bias against the supernatural which every 20th-century American imbibes with his mother's milk. Only by the most intense effort are we able to read the New Testament  without the spectacles of modern skepticism. But we must make the effort if we are going to find out what God actually intends about spiritual gifts today.

This brings me back to the original point: What does the New Testament actually say about the continuations of spiritual gifts?

To begin with, the whole notion  that miracles and supernatural "sign gifts" have ceased is based on two arguments. 1) I Corinthians 13 is supposed to say that miracles of all kinds will cease when the New Testament is completed.  What the passage actually says is that "tongues," "prophecies," and "knowledge" will cease  "when that which is perfect has come."   Everything in the argument hinges on the meaning of  "that which is perfect."  Those who make this argument include without warrant everything miraculous among those things which "will cease."  And they say that "that which is perfect" is the completed New Testament.  But this verse says absolutely nothing about Miracles, Healings, Discerning of  Spirits; In fact, it says nothing about the New Testament. Only by the most tortured and unlikely exegesis can this scripture be made to say that all miracles and supernatural gifts will come to an end after the final book of the Bible is written.  2) The second reason is the supposed pattern in Acts, which is said to show that only those who had the Apostles' hands laid on them ever exercised the gifts of the Spirit. But not only is that idea not found in  Scripture, no such pattern can be found in the Book of Acts.  In Acts chapter 9 Paul received  the Holy Spirit at the hands of an unknown disciple, Ananias.  In chapter 10 Cornelius and his household received the Holy Spirit directly from heaven, as on the Day of Pentecost. And in Acts 2:39 "the promise of the Father "(which is identified with the being baptized in the Holy Spirit in Acts l:4-5) is said to be for all people for all times: "For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are far off, even as  many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself."

Now this is the absolute crux of the matter.   The only scripture that says anything remotely like what the author contends is the passage cited before.  Everything depends on what "that which is perfect" means.  I do not wish to go into an involved study of the Greek. It's enough to say that the Greek word means "the perfect thing." Nothing in the word itself tells us what it refers to. However, it does not mean perfect on our modern sense of the word, of something flawless and without defect. Rather it means something more like "completed," "mature,"  "full-grown." It is the same Greek word translated in Ephesians 4:13 as "mature." In fact, that scripture in Ephesians helps us (I believe) to rightly interpret I Corinthians l3. The point in both passages is that certain gifts and ministries were given to the Church for a certain purpose and for a certain time.  Let us see if the Bible indicates what that time was.

          And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets,
          and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and
          teachers...until we attain  to the unity of the faith, and
          of the knowledge of the Son of God,  to a mature man,
          to the measure of the stature of the fullness which belongs to
          Christ...speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in
          all aspects into Him...from whom the whole body,  being
          fitted and held  together by what every joint supplies,
          according to the proper working of each individual part,
          causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself
          in love. Eph. 4:11-16 ( my italics). 

Notice that the goal of the ministries is maturity in love.    This is also the subject of  I Corinthians 13. This is, after all, the famous "love chapter," and Paul is speaking of growing up and becoming a man ("When I was a child...").  Another scripture that is relevant here is Ephesians 5:26, where Paul says that Christ will "present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but...holy and blameless." In a word, I believe that when the Church of Jesus Christ grows up in love, is purified as a bride, Jesus will return for her, take her unto Himself; and then we  shall "see face to face" and "know  even  as  we are known."  In other words the coming of Christ for His Church will coincide with her full maturity in love. That is why both the supernatural charismatic gifts and the ministry gifts are given for a specific period of time. But that time is not the completion of the New Testament; it is the maturing of the Church in love, and Christ's return for her. 

Something about the assertion that "that which is perfect" is the completed New Testament has always seemed to me to be unnatural and strained.  For instance, does anyone really believe that we now "see face to face" or "know even as we are known"?  Would anyone, upon the first reading of this passage, ever imagine that Paul was referring to the completion of the New Testament canon?  I think not. That interpretation was  invented to accommodate a fallen and  faithless church. The common sense of  the common reader has always taken "face to face" to refer to the  presence of God. This is reflected in the hymns and devotional  literature of the Church. It seems to me that only a person who had other reasons, reasons not at all Biblical,  for believing in the ending of gifts would ever find such an unexpected meaning in Paul's words. 

The Bible nowhere leads us to believe that the supernatural acts of God, including supernatural gifts, will come to an end.  In fact, the New Testament everywhere assumes that they will continue; and in one place (at least) states outright that they will. I will now examine a few scriptures which seem to me to indicate the opposite of what the author contends.

Mark 16:15-18:  This scripture promises that as the disciples go forth and fulfill the Great Commission, "these signs will accompany those who have believed." These signs include casting out demons, speaking in new languages, protection from deadly serpents and poison, and healing the sick by the laying on of hands--all clearly supernatural works of God.  No limits or qualifications are placed on the promise except faith.  It is entirely general and open-ended. Verses l9 and 20 record the beginning of the fulfillment of this promise: "So then  when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven.... And  they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them, confirming the word by the signs that followed." I have heard  it argued that this shows the promises fulfilled and their purpose complete, that the preached word no longer needs to be confirmed because we have the Bible. But no one would get that from these words. Verses 19 and 20 show rather that the promises began to be fulfilled and that Christ was with them confirming the preached word.  And He has promised always to be with the Church, "even unto the end of the age" ( Matt. 28:20). The only reason anyone would see a discontinuation of "these signs" in this passage would be that he was already convinced on other grounds that they had ceased. 

I Corinthians 1:4-8:  "I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you are enriched in all speech and all knowledge,  even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."  I have added emphasis at certain places to show that Paul was referring to the unusual giftedness of the Corinthian church, that the gifts were given to confirm the word as in Mark 16 ("the testimony concerning Christ"), and that Paul expected the church to be so confirmed until the end, until "the day of Christ."   I believe a fair reading of this scripture makes it clear that the Apostle expected the confirming testimony of miraculous gifts to continue until Christ returned.

The next passage, John 14:12,  is perhaps more controversial than the others. "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also: and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father."  Here again is a promise that is general, open-ended, and totally without horizon. The recipient of the promise is "he who believes in Me."  So, not only are the supernatural works to continue, but there ought to be "greater works" done.  While I am certain that His mighty works did continue in the Church, I do not believe this particular  promise has yet been fulfilled:  I believe it is to be realized in the end-time Church.  What individual believer (for that is to whom the promise was made) has done greater works than Christ?  Who has walked on water, raised the dead, multiplied loaves and fishes, turned water to wine, stilled storms?  And yet the promise is there, plain and unequivocal. I leave it  to others to explain it away and equivocate. I choose to believe it and expect it yet to be fulfilled..

These scriptures, I believe, support my view that the Bible rather clearly indicates that miracles and spiritual gifts are part of God's age-lasting equipment for His people.  This means that we must face all evidence and testimony of current-day miracles and supernatural gifts and evaluate each case on its own merit.  We may not assume that the evidence must be false.

The author of this booklet, and people like him, are doubtless sincere, but they are doing serious damage to God's people. The final days of human history will be rife with confusion and demonic deception. Christians need, desperately need,  supernatural wisdom, knowledge, and power to stand fast and not be overcome. These well-meaning but deceived ministers are denying to the people of God under their charge the necessary power and knowledge for victory: a power and knowledge which, according to the promise of Scripture, is available to all who believe.

I urge everyone who reads this review to look deeply into his own heart and ask himself if he really wants to know the truth in this matter.  Would it be easier, safer, to cling to the teachings of his own group?  Think about it.  You have labored long and caught little.  Are you willing to launch out into the deep at the Lord's command?  God bless you.  Amen.