We have been doing a series on the Holy Spirit and one of the key issues, of course, in addition to the person and work of the Holy Spirit is the gifts of the Spirit. This is related directly to you, to your ministry, your purpose, and your effectiveness, and so it is a very relevant topic. It is also something of a controversial topic, as you may know, between those who are Charismatics and those who are not Charismatics. We will discuss some of those issues, particularly those associated with things like miraculous gifts. Following that I want to go through the various gifts and talk about their nature and home in on a few of them. I want to stress the importance of all of us having them and using them in effective ways to edify the body of Christ. In order to do that we need to talk about the spiritual gifts and the history of redemption.
Generally, a spiritual gift is an ability empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in any ministry in the Church. So, there are aspects of spiritual gifts that are natural as well as what you might say supernatural. Many aspects of spiritual gifts merely reflect natural abilities. Gifts like teaching, or showing mercy, or gifts of leadership can, and often do, relate to natural abilities.
But, there are other kinds of gifts that seem to be less related to natural abilities. For example, prophecy, or healing, or distinguishing between spirits are not necessarily related to natural abilities. It is important to view this as not every natural ability that people have would be included in Paul’s list.
As we have said before, in the economy of the Old Testament, the work of the Holy Spirit was less powerful than it is in the New Covenant economy. In Old Testament times you did not have effective evangelism among the nations; you didn’t have the power to cast out demons, and healing was a good deal less common. There are exceptions, and Elijah and Elisha are examples of that, but, basically, you have a good deal more power with Pentecost than you ever did in the Old Testament economy. We certainly see more of that power in the life of Christ.
As we have said before, Christ brought us into and manifested a new realm of power that was not known prior to that time. But we still live in a tension between two ages; in one way we are living in this age, but in another aspect we live in the age to come. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is greater than it was before, but it is still nothing like what it will be at Christ’s coming. As we are going to see, spiritual gifts are things given to us to edify and strengthen us, but they are temporary and will ultimately be replaced by something greater. You might say they are partial foreshadowings of what is to come. Only when Christ comes, though, is this present age finally completed, and we live in that tension of the now and the not yet. But we have been given the authority and the power of the Spirit of God within us as a result of the workings of the Holy Spirit, who has been sent to empower His Church. We have an authority to accomplish things that we never could have thought of doing in the past.
We also see in Romans 8 that we have a powerful experience in dealing with the issue of our power over sin. John the Baptist anticipated the coming of the Messiah and said He would come and baptize, not in water, but with the Holy Spirit and fire. Then, when Jesus began His ministry, we see, as He worked in His teaching, and in casting out demons, and in healing, that He had indeed come to conquer Satan’s kingdom. In fact, He said in Matthew 12:28 that it was by the Spirit of God that He cast out demons and that “…the kingdom of God has come upon you.” He is associating the ministry and the power of the Holy Spirit with God’s kingdom. In addition, He sent out His disciples, saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and He told them to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons. Again, you have this New Covenant power that is associated with the ability to do things that were previously unknown.
Acts 1:8 also relates to this concept, when they were to wait in Jerusalem until they would be imbued from power from on high, and then they would receive the Holy Spirit. He was telling them that when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, He will empower you to be His witnesses throughout the whole world. What are some of the things we see regarding power in the beginning days of the apostolic Church? What are the works of power that we see? Well, we see things like deliverance from demonic oppression, which is mentioned several times in the book of Acts; we see very powerful evangelistic preaching; we see physical healing; we see prophecies, dreams, and visions; and it appears that these things would be characteristic of the New Covenant age and that it would begin with Pentecost. And, as B.B. Warfield put it, “The apostolic Church was characteristically a miracle-working Church.”
Now, there is a debate as to whether these things continued up to the present time and I will discuss that a little later. Certainly, we can say that the spiritual gifts are a manifestation of the power of the Spirit of God and their purpose in the New Testament age is manifold. 1 Corinthians 1:7 is a key verse for understanding their purpose because it says that they were given to equip the Church to carry out its ministry. Paul is telling them, in other words, that they are not lacking in any spiritual gifts as they await the revealing of Christ. What is the connection? It appears that these gifts are given to us until that the day when Christ comes back. So, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:10 that, “When the Perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.” These gifts also empowered them to build up the Church. In 1 Corinthians 14:12 it talks about how these gifts are used to build up and to edify and to nurture the Church and to bring it into maturity. In fact, Ephesians 4 is a key passage for this. These gifts are “…for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.”