Now that the apostle has brought in this great two-edged sword, as it were, to guard the glory of the Lord Jesus, we find him turning to another grave truth in verse 4, “There are diversities of gifts.” The Corinthians acted as if the only gifts worth talking about, and these above all and evidently grand, were such a manifest display of the divine power as in speaking many tongues without having learned them, or in working miracles. No doubt they did draw attention to the person who had the power so to speak or work; and it is very evident that here was divine power acting in a special way. But the Spirit of God recalls to one of the most characteristic truths attached to His own presence in the church— “There are diversities of gifts.” Whatever does not leave room for every gift that God has given is not the church of God acting as such. Whenever it is an accepted principle or a settled practice, when it is a sanctified order of things, to shut out the diversities of gifts that God is now giving to the church of God, it is a state that He disowns. It is contrary to the nature and aim of the church of God. Nor do I mean an opening for their exercise here or there in outposts, or in less important and comparatively private ways, but not on the greatest occasions, the coming together of all saints as God's assembly (ἐν ἐκκλησία) whether for the Lord's Supper or at other times. Not so did the Lord ordain as is shown by the apostle in all the context, where, correcting disorders, he maintains this intact.
There are diversities of gifts, “but the same Spirit;” because although these gifts differ immensely in their character, yet they all come from the same source. God has to do with one as truly as another. There is an immense difference between the lesser and the greater gifts, but “the same Spirit;” and if I would respect the Spirit of God, I should respect the least gift that comes from Him. Then there is another thing which the Corinthians had forgotten (verse 5), “And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.” One cannot have a gift without being a servant; that is, one is not his own master in the use of the gift, but a servant of the Lord Jesus. This the Corinthians had lost or never known; they were acting independently. Even the Holy Ghost Himself has deigned to take the place of a servant, and, having come down to that place, He lifts no one above it. This is the next great truth presented to us—not only diversities of gifts and the same Spirit, but differences of administrations (that is to say, of services), yet the same Lord. And, lastly, there were the results produced by these powers which wrought in subjection to the sovereign glory of God. For if there were differences or “diversities of operations” as they are called (verse 6), “it is the same God that worketh all in all.” What an immense present fact in a world of vain show!
If this was rather the general statement of divine power in the church of God, we come in the next place to its working in each individual. The apostle has been stating the common principle. There was the same Spirit, by whom all gifts were distributed, the same Lord, and the same God; but now he comes to the particular forms of the gift (verse 7): “The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” It was not to please the individual himself, but for others' benefit. For these gifts to effect common good is the declared aim of all these workings of the Spirit of God in the church.
Then (verse 8) we have “For to one is given by the Spirit [not miracles, but] the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge.” Note that he carefully adds “by the same Spirit,” because knowledge has a considerably lower character than wisdom; but at the same time the “knowledge” that he owns here is as truly by the Holy Ghost as the “wisdom.” What is this word “wisdom” as compared with the word “knowledge?” To gather truth by serious study of God's word is far from being wrong. Indeed it is of the Holy Spirit; and the result is “knowledge;” and the utterance of it He gives is “the word of knowledge.” So Timothy was called to give himself wholly up to it. In fact, what is gathered thus is most justly to be considered the “word of knowledge;” and this no doubt possesses value, as everything has that God gives by the Holy Ghost to the church—the church of God. What a person gleans, spiritually laboring in the field of the word of God, has its place, was meant for all, and is refreshing to the saints of God. But it is not exactly the same as the “word of wisdom;” for “wisdom,” it seems; indicates that the soul is occupied not merely with scripture, but with Him who gave it that one might know Himself Thus the soul, furnished by the word of God, proves what it is to gather God's own mind; not merely to have it in details, as given here and there in scripture, but, by a deeper appreciation of His word, to enter into that acquaintance with Him which is found not so much in studying texts, as from communion with His own nature, ways, character, and above all with Christ Himself. He was found, I need not say always, “the wisdom of God.” Christ is never called the “knowledge of God,” nor could He be, but the “wisdom of God.” It is rather, I repeat, to be drinking not merely from the stream, but at the spring of all in God Himself! It is thence that the “word of wisdom” is drawn, following the course of the river higher up.
Now you will have noticed that the apostle does not commence with power so evident or striking He begins, on the contrary, with that which the Corinthians had very little love for, what they had painfully neglected and set aside in seeking after those mighty displays which occupied their active minds. The apostle takes them first to what edifies: “To one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge.” He then passes on to the gift of “faith,” namely, that power which enables the soul to break through difficulties. This is the faith that is referred to here. You must remember the gift of faith does not mean believing the truth; for this, of course, is indispensable in all saints.
Then we come to what was sensible to everybody or palpable even to an unbeliever. “To another the gift of healing by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits.” The latter means not discerning whether or not people were Christians, but discovering whether the spirit by which they spoke. was of God or of Satan. In short, it was special power in the application of the preliminary criterion given in the third verse, which we have already noticed.
Then we have (ver. 10-12), “To another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every one severally as He will. For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.” Here we have the fundamental principle that I wish to assert just now with all plain ness of speech; and hence we perceive how the divinely taught may take in whatever is true of the two ideas that we have seen at work, give its just place to each, and combine them both, as the truth does, instead of setting them at war one with another, as men do.
Anything that really weakens faith could not be of God. Whatever would intercept the soul, whatever dared to come between it and the object of faith, could not be of God. Hence, therefore, the word of preaching that God employs for our conversion has exactly this for its object, viz., to put the individual before God—to present Christ to him, to meet his wants, and his misery, and his distance from God. There, consequently, it is entirely a question of faith. By faith it is that a man is justified; by faith he becomes a child of God. All the great individual blessings that a man has for himself, turn on faith in Christ given to him by the Holy Ghost through the word of God. It is through Christ (I need scarcely say) brought and revealed to his soul that this faith is produced.
But there is more than this to see. If one is a believer, what follows? When he submits to the testimony of God, when he has received the word of truth, when he has given to him the Holy Ghost, what is the effect? He is brought into the unity of the body of Christ. It is not simply that he has got the Holy Ghost, giving him the joy of the truth he has received, and withal power and liberty before God; but, besides, the Spirit gives union with all those here on earth who belong to Christ, who are set free for God and yet bound to Him.
Here then is exactly how we find the combination of the two principles entirely dislocated by man. He has divorced what should always be joined together. If you look only at man, there can be no doubt that the individual (or, as we may say, the Protestant) principle of faith is for the soul a far safer one than the Catholic one, which makes the church all. But there is more: we are not looking at things simply with regard to man, but also as to God; and we are bound to do so, and the Holy Ghost is here for the purpose of taking care of the glory of God, which is done by making Christ the object. He only is the object of all the purposes of God and the consequence is, that, until we enter into God's purposes, there never can be the sure or anything like a large enjoyment of the truth.
For when we have the Spirit of God, as He now is given to the believer, it is not only individually; but he is baptized into, or made to belong to, the one body. He is “one spirit with the Lord.” He is, consequently, one with all who are the Lord's. This, again, brings us face to face with the further truth that the Holy Ghost does not simply imprint unity upon the saints, and then leave them, but is here to make good all the objects of the glory of God. It is of very great moment that the children of God should look at the thing personally. I am afraid—and particularly so where people trust creeds instead of scripture—that the simplicity and the force of the plain truth that the Holy Ghost is a divine person is but little understood or even believed. Such is the case now, I believe, among those who are commonly called “Evangelicals,” whether they be Dissenters or Churchmen. Faith in the Holy Ghost as a divine person being feebly entertained, you will find that they generally talk about the Holy Ghost as an “influence.” It is not that men deny the existence of the Spirit of God, but they do not see the all-importance of His being a divine person; and, further than that, a divine person who is here working in God's saints and in God's assembly, sovereignly or as He will, to glorify the Lord Jesus.
Now here precisely we have the truth which the Corinthians too so little appreciated and therefore the apostle brings it out in this distinct manner. “All these” (not “some of them,” not those only which made themselves so conspicuous, but)— “all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that body, being many, are one body: so also is [not the church only, but] Christ.” The apostle is no doubt looking at the church, but he blends it with the Head, as inseparably united together. He does not speak thus to the Ephesians. They do not require it to be so impressed upon them as did the Corinthians. Impossible to have been so loose as the Corinthians were, if they had remembered that the whole being, head and body, was all one “Christ.” They looked upon themselves as invested with power, and this to them was the whole affair practically. But the apostle would convince them that these powers are but a small mid an inferior part of a vast system of divine working in the church on earth. It is a body one with Christ, and even called so, of which each and all who now believe are living members. “So also is Christ. For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
Then we have (ver. 14), “For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not of the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?” There plainly we have discontent with what the Lord had given. And was there ever-greater reason for this to be weighed than now? Whenever a soul is found faithfully using the gift given to it, there will always be blessing; but if on the contrary, the one with a humble gift, such as would be represented by “the foot,” should covet what he has not got, his own proper work is lost by ignoring his real place in the body. The whole thought therefore is dishonoring to God. So again (ver. 16), “If the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?” Discontent may run through the members, high as well as low.
In verse 17th he puts it thus, “If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?” The blessedness of the body is in each member doing its own function; because it is not merely my ear but I that hear through it, nor is it only my eye that sees, but rather I myself. It is the man. And this it is which gives, therefore, such a sense of unity, and is so real a means of blessing to every member, to the least just as much as the greatest. They all contribute; and indeed there would be a most sensible loss, were the least member to fail in doing its part. This is what the Corinthians had seriously lost sight of; but are we not in just the same danger as they were. Indeed we seem more particularly exposed; because, having come out of systems where there was only room for the priest or the minister, we naturally tend to the same. There is nothing that people sooner slip into than some kind of isolation and individuality; because for the most part they have come from where individuality was strong, and the place of the church was unknown or swamped. For not more truly does the “church” principle destroy the “individual” one, than the “individual” principle neutralizes the “church” one, if each stands alone.
The blessedness of the truth is that we have both—the individual blessing first clear, and then the corporate one, each being made and kept good by the Spirit of God. If the Holy Spirit brings my soul to know Christ, to rest on Him, and rejoice in Him before God, I cannot have it all without laboring that others may have the same blessing. This is the way in which God brings the two principles together and conciliates them round the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. For it is not merely that I have Him as a Savior; I have Him also as the Head. Yea the body is one with Him as here: “So also is Christ.” What an ennobling yet truly humbling standard for our practice, that all we are is a representation of Christ! I do not mean individually alone, but when we come together in the assembly; for this is the public way for the church to be known. How jealous ought we to be, therefore, that every meeting of the assembly should present Christ in truth! If we belong to God's church, what matter about any other church? His is the only church worth contending for; if we are Christians, we are of it. All we need to see to is that we walk, and meet, and worship accordingly.
This, then, is the first violation of the thought of unity, viz., discontent with the place the Lord has given us, the desire for something greater, something more prominent than that which is ours. “But now,” says the apostle, “hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him.” (ver. 28). How establishing this is to the soul! It is what, in our measure, we all want, to be more distinct about. Perhaps there are persons in this room who have come in merely believing that here we are enjoying things more simply and with more purity. This I believe; but it does not give you the true groundwork, nor explain why we have left what man has done in self-will. Is it the fact that we have to do with God in the matter, and that God has to do with us?—that we meet because, and as, it is the will of God? Surely God is still carrying on that building, His holy temple; surely the work of the Holy Spirit is still preceding on according to the figure that is spoken of here—the body of Christ.
Whatever the difficulties, or disorder, or confusion, God's house abides, and of Christ's body we are. We have come to that which expresses it, and it is as members of Christ we meet as we do. Each meeting of the faithful that we have our part in is a witness to the one body, though we frankly own the ruin-state in which the church is here below; even the humblest soul that is accepted in the name of the Lord Jesus, as made by the Holy Ghost a member of Christ's body, has just as real a place in it as any other. Not merely so are the prominent members, but no less are those described, according to the apostle's figure here, as the “uncomely” ones (ver. 23). It is of high practical moment that we should accept unreservedly the truth of God respecting this. So that, supposing there are real Christians that cause trouble or difficulty, it is the teaching of the Spirit of God that we should heartily accept them. What sort of a mother would it be that ever finds fault and becomes impatient with one of her children which complained of anything unduly? A true mother would anxiously care for that child more than any of the others, because it most needed her love. May I not then say that it is exactly thus the Lord really calls us to be? For what is a spiritual mind, but a mind in possession of affections and of a judgment according to God, so that we shall be found seeking just the same things as Christ—not restlessly wishing to get rid of a trial or difficulty or anything of the kind, but bearing all, not only in patience, but with love exercised by it.
Let us take up briefly the other form in which the working of the Spirit of God is apt to be set aside (ver. 21). “The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee; or, again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” Here we have the exact counterpart to what we have been looking at. It is not the inferior part wanting to be something greater, but the superior part that disdains the lesser place. These things, brethren, ought not so to be. But as they were then and we are now, so we do well to lay this instructive warning to heart. The very nature of the body rises up to rebuke the greater gift which would deprecate or hinder the less. Let us be thankful to the grace which has given us any place; let us discharge earnestly the functions God has given us in the body of Christ; but let us prize and make the most of every other member, and not least those who have a place wholly different from our own. Disdain be as far from us as discontent.
(To be continued D.V.)