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In 1 Corinthians 12-14, we come to a passage that has dominated Christian discussion for the last 60 years. It is one that Peter and I have been thinking and preaching on for most of our public ministries. But I hope that you find this fresh take on the passage to be a helpful way of understanding Paul’s letter.
Yours,
Phillip
Peter Jensen: What a relief to arrive at chapters 12, 13 and 14. I feel as though I have devoted much thought to them over the years and could give a sermon without any further preparation. At least, that’s how I felt until you, in preparation for this episode, threw a couple of grenades in my path. I don’t know what to think, so you’d better explain yourself. But before you do so, let’s begin by reading it.
1 Corinthians 12:1–13
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptised into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
Phillip Jensen: This brings up several issues—but let’s start with 12:1. This verse, in saying “Now concerning,” refers to a new question that the Corinthians had asked about spiritual gifts. A footnote appears here, which clarifies, “or spiritual persons.” So which are we referring to: spiritual gifts or spiritual persons? But in fact, the original text doesn’t specifically refer to either. It uses the adjective, ‘spirituals’, as in, “Now concerning spirituals.” So you’ve got to understand which noun it could be referring to. It could be ‘persons’, or ‘gifts’, or it could be ‘things’. I prefer ‘things’ because it is as vague as the text is. I don’t think ‘gifts’ or ‘persons’ is necessarily the topic; it is about ‘spirituals’. So I think ‘things’ is a much better translation. What I’m saying here is nothing new to those who read the original text. Peter and I were taught that 50 years ago when we were in College. But it’s helpful for people to understand why the footnote is there, because the Greek words for ‘gifts’ and ‘persons’ don’t sound even vaguely alike. You may wonder, “How could the Greek be so different?” The answer is that the noun isn’t there at all; you need to make up a word. There’s the first problem.
Peter: Indeed. I remember Mr Robinson, our beloved New Testament lecturer, mentioning to us that this word ‘gifts’ was as you say it was, but then I didn’t get a better explanation of the passage. Furthermore, the modern translations have ‘gifts’, but the Revised Version, which used to be regarded in our day as being the most accurate of all translations, puts the word ‘gifts’ in italics. So it’s not a recent innovation.
Phillip: No, it’s not. In one sense, it’s not an unreasonable guess. The phrase ‘spiritual gifts’ doesn’t occur anywhere in the New Testament; every time the word ‘gift’ is there, the word ‘spiritual’ is not. But if there is any part of the New Testament that does talk about the work of the Spirit in terms of gifts, it is this chapter. So if you look down to verse 4, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit,” you see that the Spirit is linked with gifts. So it’s not unreasonable to think ‘gifts’ is the noun that is meant. But if you include the word without putting it in italics like the Revised Version did, which was their way of indicating the word wasn’t there, then I’m afraid people read the whole chapter as if it is about spiritual gifts. I think there’s more to it than that.
Peter: You certainly made me think about it. If we think of the ancient world—and indeed much of the modern world—with a worldview of a multiplicity of spiritual entities, both good and bad, then perhaps he’s raising a general subject here. We think that demonic possession is strange, but that’s not how most people throughout history have thought of it; they have believed, and continue to believe in evil and good spirits. This has shown up in our discussions of food offered to idols, and in this passage he goes on to say, “No one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’” Perhaps, then, Paul has in mind the spirit world in which the Corinthians lived.
Phillip: I think that’s much more likely. He’s already told the Corinthians back in chapter 3 that he can’t talk to them as if they were spiritual; here, the phrase ‘spiritual’ has a wider meaning than just the Holy Spirit. Christian spirituality certainly is about the Holy Spirit, who brings us the age to come. But the spiritual world, of which we as Westerners do not commonly talk about, is the one I wrote about in my book, The Coming of the Holy Spirit,1 that was published a few years ago. In the writing of that book was a verse which held up the whole of my writing for 12 months, for there was a translation problem which one of the editors pointed out to me. That verse was 1 Corinthians 14:12, “So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.” The trouble is, the Greek doesn’t say, “the manifestations of the spirit.” What it really says is, “since you are eager for spirits,” plural. The Holy Spirit is never spoken of in plural form, so it can’t be referring to the Holy Spirit—thus it should be written with a lowercase ‘s’. But then that raises the question: what spirits is it talking about? Each translation has this same error.
The commentaries I found all refer to it, and then move on as if it doesn’t exist. So for 12 months, I couldn’t move on because I had to struggle to work out what it was talking about. But once you take seriously the spirit world of which the Corinthians were much more consciously aware than we are in our Westernised world, then “concerning the spirituals” can be referring to not so much the gifts, but the spiritual world. In other words, it is concerning the things of the spirits that the Corinthians were zealots for. That then shifts how you read chapter 12. Because the key question is not, “Should we have gifts at work in our church?” Rather, it is, “What is the role of the Spirit and the spirits in a spirit world?” That then opens up for us polytheism again, because he’s been adamant that there’s only one God, whereas the ancient world has many so-called gods. These different gods had different functions: a god for rain, a god for good crops, a god for love, a god for power, a god of armies and so forth. They all had their different portfolios of life, so to speak.
In the same way, some people have saints performing similar functions. For example, St. Luke is the saint for healing and St. Christopher is the saint for travelling. There are a plethora of saints that come within Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and you pray to them for help in traveling or healing or whatever you need. Similarly, the ancient world had different gods, or different spirits, who were involved in different elements of your life. Now with that framework in mind, think again about 1 Corinthians 12.
Peter: I refer back to 12:2 and so forth, “You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.”
What you’re putting forward here is a hypothesis, and so we’re going to test it to see if it makes sense of the passage. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say, “This is the truth, come what may.”
The other point I would like to make is that it’s rather strange that he could be talking to these Christian people, baptised and confessing Christ, in the way he has. If I understand it correctly, the great East African revival had its beginnings when Christian people just had to decide between living in the spirit world or living in the biblical world—the world of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Because it’s not easy to give up the old to take on the new. It takes a remarkably strong and wonderful repentance. People turned away from the spirit world and committed themselves wholly to the truth of the gospel, whereas before, they had been teetering between the two, and the result was an extraordinary revival in East African religion. The Corinthians may have been in a similar situation of trying to have both ways. Going on from there, the hypothesis we’re putting forward does make sense of the rest of the opening. I’ve mentioned 12:4 already, where the powerful work of the Spirit of God enables them against their sinful, enslaved natures—enslaved to the spirit world and to sin—to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, the one and only Lord who rules over their lives, as we have as Christian men and women. We have a new master, a new lord, the one who died for us. Furthermore, we are led into his service through repentance by the Holy Spirit. It’s grace which leads us to put our trust and confidence in this new and only Lord. So that’s a gospel beginning.
How does this impact on the rest of the passage, beginning with 12:5–11?
Phillip: It’s such an important gospel beginning: that the heart of the work of the Spirit, in coming into the world, is pointing to Jesus, and so converting people to Jesus as Lord. You cannot have Jesus as Lord without the Spirit, and if you have the Spirit, you will have Jesus as Lord. So the essence of the Spirit’s work is there. Paul then turns to the subject of a variety of gifts, service, and activities—in other words, workings—where the same triune God is involved in them at all. But notice 1 Corinthians 12:4–6
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.
What is the emphasis on this word, ‘same’? In a world where there are many gods, many spirits, many lords, it is stark that within the gospel, there is one. So the activity of God in this world may be varied, but there is one Father, Son, and Spirit who are at work. When Paul then talks in particular about the Spirit, he starts off with this issue of the manifestation of the Spirit. So having spoken of the Father and the Son and the Spirit at work in us, he now addresses the particular work of the Spirit which is called the manifestation of the Spirit.
Peter: That is ‘manifestation’, singular, not plural. When I turn to this passage, I tend to skip over 12:1–4 and get straight to the gift of the Spirit. 12:7, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Then each of the gifts is listed. It’s not talking about a different manifestation for each gift, but the whole of it. This is where you put your finger on something really important: the unity of what’s going on here, under one God.
Phillip: Yes, it’s interesting that most people read it as, “the manifestations of the Spirit,” and even the commentators who say it’s singular still speak as if each of the gifts then listed are a different manifestation of the Spirit. What you see in the work of the Spirit is the common good. There is one and the same Spirit who is giving to all differing gifts for the common good, but the sign of the Holy Spirit is the sign of unity, not particularly of the different gifts.
Peter: But we read this passage because we’re interested in the gifts.
Phillip: Yes, but it’s really about the Spirit, and we should be interested in him and his purpose rather than the gifts. There’s only one Spirit in them all. Look how it reads. If you just notice this word, ‘same’. 12:8, “For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit.” He wouldn’t need to repeat “the same Spirit” unless he was making a point. He continues, 12:9, “To another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit.”
This emphasis on “the one” and “the same” is the emphasis of the passage. It’s not the gifts. There is no doubt that the Holy Spirit empowers and gives us all kinds of things to do. It is because of God, not because of ourselves, that we are able to do what we’re able to do. But that’s not the point he’s making here. The point is there are not multiplicities of spirits at work with differing portfolios, like in the world of gods. There’s one Spirit at work in all the different gifts that you may see around.
Peter: I’m thinking now of unity and variety. As a doctrine lecturer, this is a crucial passage for what we understand about the Holy Spirit from the Bible. First of all, we see him pointing to and leading us to Christ. That’s a great work of the Holy Spirit. There is a parallel elsewhere in Galatians where we are brought to call God our Abba, our Father. We see a Trinitarian doctrine of God in 12:4–6, which again is immensely important. But we’re also dealing here with a passage which has much to do with the Holy Spirit. But we are also dealing with a passage that has considerable importance for our doctrine of church. In 12:12–13, we have a description of the body of Christ.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptised into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
So there can only be one body of Christ, despite the fact that we have different denominations claiming to be the true body. The concept of these denominations being the true body of Christ is a concept arising from what we think about church. It works from the church backwards, rather than from the Bible forwards. The other point to do with the Spirit is that all Christians have received the baptism of the Spirit. When you become a Christian, you are baptised by the Spirit, because you are brought to Christ and incorporated into him. That is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is absolutely marvellous. Of course, it’s not so much about the Spirit, but about Christ.
Phillip: Without the Spirit, you cannot know Jesus as Lord. That’s where he started. When we were pagans, we carried off with all kinds of other idols and spirits, in all kinds of ways we know. But we know it is the Holy Spirit that has led us to acknowledge Christ as Lord, as we are baptised into the one body with Christ as Lord and the head of the church. So the work of the one and the same Spirit in all of us is first and foremost to make us Christian. Even though we have a great variety of works and gifts, it’s the one and the same Spirit at work in all of them, just as it’s the same Father and the same Lord Jesus at work in all.
From 12:13 onwards, as we’ll see next week, the Holy Spirit is not mentioned much. In fact, you think chapters 12–14 are about the Spirit, but after 12:13, the key element of the Spirit’s work has been made clear. That is, we’ve now been brought into the body of Christ, of which we’ll talk next week, and it turns out that the gifts that we were just told about were actually the gifts of the Father. So suddenly you think, “It’s not the key work of the Spirit to be giving the gifts, seeing as the same gifts are given by the Father as given by the Spirit. So why have we got these here?” It’s because they’re the great illustration of the fact that it’s only one Spirit, the Holy Spirit who brought us to Jesus Christ as our Lord, into the one body. So this passage is contrary to the spirituals of the pagan, and introduces us into the spirituals of the Christian, via the Holy Spirit who makes us Christian.
Phillip D. Jensen, The Coming of the Holy Spirit, 2022 (Matthias Media)
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Links & Recommendations
For more on this topic, check out this talk given at St Andrew’s Cathedral called Manifesting the Spirit.
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