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So let us begin our study this evening by reading from uh First Corinthians, chapter twelve. First Corinthians, chapter twelve, beginning to read in verse twenty seven. Now you are body of Christ, and severally members thereof. And God has set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, different kinds of tongues.
Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But desire earnestly the greater gifts, and still a more excellent way show I unto you. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long and is kind. Love envieth not. Love vaunteth not itself.
Is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly. Seeketh not its own. Is not provoked. Taketh not account of evil. Rejoices not in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. Beareth all things. Believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth, that whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away.
Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror darkly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I have been known. But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three, and the greatest of these is love. In these studies, we are considering together the Holy Spirit and the gifts which he imparts and empowers in his people.
And on our first occasion, we spent time together considering the Holy Spirit himself and the mission that he was given as he was sent forth by the risen Lord Jesus from the Father to our world. We considered the glorious objectives that he has in his gracious practical ministry. And we did so that when on the second and third and fourth occasions we turned to considering our own gifts, we might have clearly before our minds the great objectives that the Holy Spirit pursues, that we might use the gifts that he gives us in pursuance of those same objectives, thus to please him who has given us these gifts.
Then last week we came to begin the study of chapters twelve, thirteen, and fourteen of First Corinthians, in which chapter the Holy Spirit inspires his apostle Paul to speak to us in detail, in practical detail, about the gifts that he has given us and how we should evaluate them and how we should use them, so that in our using of them, we might use them intelligently for the great objective that the Holy Spirit has. Our aim in these chapters is to take the arguments that Paul uses and the statements that he makes in the order in which he uses them, and try to consider them in due proportion as he has given them to us, noticing as we can the many and the very balanced arguments that he uses to urge us to use our spiritual gifts in an intelligent fashion to the glory of God and the benefit of the body of Christ.
We found, therefore, last week, as we began chapter twelve that the first thing that the apostle is led to tell us about spiritual gifts is this, that our spiritual gifts must always be tested to see whether they are genuine spiritual gifts, or whether they are not genuine and due to some other source, psychological or spiritual or fleshly. And then we notice that the first and the chief test that the Holy Spirit lays down for the testing of spiritual gift is the doctrinal content of what is said by means of this spiritual gift.
No one, being led by the Holy Spirit, says Jesus is anathema. No one, likewise, under the impulse of an evil spirit, will consent to say Jesus is Lord in the full sense of that term, Lord, the sole sovereign, unique, transcendent Lord. And we notice, therefore, in the third place, that if we are to test spiritual gifts by their doctrinal content, we must know clearly on each occasion, beyond shadow of doubt, what is being said by that gift and the person who is employing it.
If we do not know what is being said, we cannot judge whether it is of God or not, and we should not, indeed we ought not, to say amen if we have not understood what is being said. And then from verses four to verse eleven we notice that Paul makes two statements, two complementary statements. The gifts that the Holy Spirit gives are many and various, and because they are different, they will employ different methods of use and be used in different circumstances, some public, some private, and so forth and so on.
But whatever is the nature of our varying gifts, if they are gifts of God, then we are given first to understand that all of them come from the Blessed Trinity. Each one of them is administered by the same Blessed Trinity for the glory of that same Trinity. Though the gifts differ then in their nature and in their use, nonetheless, each equally comes from God. Each equally is bestowed by the Holy Spirit. Each gift, therefore, is in the technical sense charismatic.
We noticed last week that the Greek term for a gift is charisma, the adjective is charismatica. All gifts of whatever kind are equally charismatic. And to help us in our thinking, it is good, is it not, if we abide by scriptural terminology and do not fall into the trap of calling some gifts charismatic and others not charismatic. In the biblical sense, I hope all of us here tonight are charismatic. But in the biblical sense, as you will understand. All the charismata therefore come equally from God.
The second part of that statement addresses the question, who decides who gets what gift? Who decides whether this man is an evangelist, uh, uh, and and that man over there a teacher or what have you? Who decides who gets what gift? And the answer that is given in verse eleven of that chapter is, these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally as he will. It lies with the sovereign prerogative of the Holy Spirit himself in his sovereignty to decide who gets what gift.
In his graciousness, he allows us, if need require, to request that we be given a gift for special purposes, but of course, ultimately, the decision rests with the sovereign Holy Spirit himself. Then, at the end of our session last week, we fell to discussing that marvelous matter, which is, how do we get our gifts anyway? By what process is it that we get our gifts? We notice, therefore, Paul uses the illustration and analogy of the human body. The ordinary human body is made up of many members, and each of those members has a gift, has a function to perform.
And yet for all there are many members, many gifts, there's only one body. So it is with the Christ, the body of Christ, says Paul. For if we would see our individual gifts in relation to all other gifts and in relation to the great work of redemption that the Lord Jesus has accomplished, we have to think now of this wonderful thing. This unique thing, the like of which never existed before Pentecost. This thing that has come into God's universe, utterly new, utterly unique. You'll see, since the Lord Jesus ascended to heaven, heaven itself has changed.
Never before was there a human being with a glorified human body in the very presence of God. And the wonder of the Lord Jesus Christ and the way that he has accomplished our salvation is that the very Godhead itself has been changed. Whereas there were uncharted eras when the second person of the Trinity was not yet human, nor had a human. Since Pentecost, heaven itself has seen with never-ending awe and wonder. Since Pentecost, the archangel himself has been a busy considering this stupendous thing that there is now in the presence of God a human being with a glorified human body.
And if that were not enough, ponder again as we begin our study the wonder of this that salvation itself has performed. That risen Christ has baptized all his people into one body, a body, a spiritual body now, of which he is the head, and all his people are members. A wonderful reality. It is, of course, one of the secrets why heaven will be heaven. You observed, surely, what an ambiguous thing individualism in is, haven't you?
Who would want to live in some totalitarian state where individuals are mere numbers in a computer, just a gray undifferentiated mass of human ciphers. Anything destructive of individuality, of individual personality, must by definition be wrong. What an ugly world it would be if our personalities were repressed. And incidentally, my brothers, my sisters, it is no intention of God to suppress people's personalities, nor to bring them out. Always be exceedingly careful in our education of children, if an old rusty bachelor might say so.
Ha. But then you are the experts, and I don't mean to say so, so I won't say so. But what I was going to say, if I had have said so, was that you see, ha. It is not God's intention to destroy the personality that he himself has made, but to redeem it, sanctify it, and develop it. Personality is an exceedingly wonderful thing, and the God who never made two snowflakes alike nor two daisies alike has not made two personalities alike, and he knows his sheep by name and loves to call them Mary, Mary, Martha, Martha, Simon, Simon, because he knows us and our individualities.
Died for us, each one individually, has an inheritance individual for us, and that eternally. But that said, there's a downside, isn't there, to individuality. How to get all these charming personalities with their rugged individualism, all to work together in harmony. And let me remind you, in case you haven't noticed it yet, that even the redeemed of the Lord, God bless every one of them, while as yet they're on this globe, sometimes find it hard to work together in harmony, don't they?
Here, see, one of the secrets of heaven will be the harmonious place it is. We shall all remain individuals, aren't we? But not just individuals. We are being formed into the body of Christ, a marvelous entity beyond our powers to describe it, of which the head is our blessed Lord Jesus, and every believer a member of it. So we shall not be just individuals, each going his and her own way and striving for our own individual objectives.
We shall exercise our personalities and gifts in complete harmony for the good of the whole, under the headship of the blessed Lord Jesus. You say, how can that be, Mr. Preacher? How can you, uh, keep your individuality and personality and yet be members of a body? Well, I don't know, and I would hesitate to use analogies that spring from beyond my experience. But, you know, I had been told by good authority that when a child is born, he spends the first eighteen years growing up, you'll see, very much under the shadow of his parents, and, uh, well, he's scarcely, for the first, distinguishable from his mum, is he, or his dad.
But he grows up little by little, and by the time he's got eighteen, he's standing on his own two feet now. By the time he's twenty one, he's a fully developed individual separate personality, yes, and the parents wisely are letting him go his own way. And do you know what happens when after all those years, twenty one years of hard slog developing his own independent personality, he goes and yields up a lot of it to some, uh, young lady. Well, it's beauty that does it and charm and whatnot, and you can understand I'm not finding fault with him, but there it is, and there are those who tell me that that, uh, next state in which both parties have agreed to see the little bits of their individuality, and the two become one, is a higher state of life than, uh, the separate individual state, and I bow to their wisdom who talk like that.
You'll see. Obviously true. And the glorious end is not that we shall be just redeemed individuals, to retain individual personality, but God's idea is that we shall be incorporated into the body of Christ, under his headship, working in harmony, the universe through. We then encountered the question, how do we get into that body? And we noticed by the double work of the risen Lord Jesus. He baptizes us in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, we therefore go into the Holy Spirit, and he causes us to drink of the Holy Spirit.
That is, the Holy Spirit enters us. Now we move on tonight to consider certain practical implications that come out of this glorious fact, that every believer, without exception, every believer has been baptized in the Holy Spirit and made to drink of the Holy Spirit. You cannot find a believer nowadays that hadn't been baptized in the Spirit or made to drink of the Spirit, for if they lacked one or the other, they wouldn't be in the body of Christ, would they?
For a human body to live and breathe and work, it has to be in the air and the air in it. For a living, for a believer to be a living member of the body of Christ, then the Holy Spirit has to be in the believer, and the believer in the Holy Spirit, and both simultaneously. You can't have one without the other, or you're not in the body of Christ at all. The experience, therefore, that Holy Scripture describes as baptism in the Holy Spirit is an experience common to all believers, each and all, says Paul, have been baptized in the Holy Spirit and made to drink of the Holy Spirit.
Thus are you in one body. If that's how we got in, there come these practical, uh, uh, words of advice and encouragement and exhortation and correction. And they're addressed in typical Pauline fashion, first of all, in verse fourteen onwards down to verse twenty, to those who might feel that they are in some way inferior and not so good as other people, because the gift they have in their estimation isn't a very good and striking gift, and so they feel inferior. And then from verse twenty one onwards down to verse twenty six, practical words addressed to any who might be tempted to feel superior because the gift they have received is a brilliant and very public gift.
Both attitudes, of course, are false. The one who feels inferior and the one who feels superior, both are false. I suspect that most of us come into the first category, do we not? The kind of feeling that now and again comes over us that I'm not very good, and what is my gift worth, and uh, if I were like this great lady missionary, then I should feel uh, a bit more secure in my heart, and if I could preach like that eloquent evangelist, then I could be sure I was in the body, and so forth and so on. The old inferiority feeling. What is its cure?
Well, says Paul in verse, uh, you'll see fifteen, if the foot shall say, I am not the hand, b- b- because I am not the hand, I am not the body, it is not therefore not of the body. Meaning this. Pray, consider poor, miserable, inferiority complex foot. He observes of his foot that he isn't the, uh, uh, uh, I, you'll say, he's not the hand either. And he marks how many beautiful, wonderful things the hand can do, and how he is a foot is a very humble bit of the affair and can't do very much at all.
And therefore gets it into his head that because he isn't the hand, he isn't a spectacular hand, then he's not even in the body. Well, if you're not in the body, you're not even a believer, are you? You know, this comes down to very, very, uh, profound matters, doesn't it? I know one good lady, a keen servant and disciple of the Lord Jesus. But in her inward heart, though she was striving to lead some of her fellow students to the Lord Jesus that they might be saved, in her own heart, she lacked that real confidence that she was herself saved, that she was a child of God.
And therefore, on one occasion, she prayed the Lord, oh Lord, help me now to lead one of my fellow students to Christ. If only you would help me lead my fellow student to Christ, and my fellow student became a Christian, I should feel certain that I was saved myself. That was very brave of her to confess that, wasn't it? Because that is a feeling that some people have. Now, if I were a Billy Graham, I could be sure I was saved. If I were an evangelist, if I was a great teacher, I could be sure I was saved, but I'm not, you see. What use am I? I don't seem to have much gift of at all, you see, so am I saved?
Uh, that leads us to consider together, doesn't it? How do you suppose God, uh, um, went about making the body of Christ? Did God say, now, um, of course, in the body of Christ, there will have to be hands. Now, let me see. Are you a good hand? Do you think you will work with your hand? You are a good hand. Right, I recruit you. Uh, you? You're not a hand. Ah, what are you then? Little toe or something? I don't know. I don't need any little toes. I've got noodles of little toes, so I, no, no, sorry, I don't want you in the body of Christ. Yeah? How do you get into the body of Christ? You have to be a jolly good super duper foot to get into the body of Christ.
Isn't that way round, is it? How do you get into the body of Christ? Not by being a superb gift. Simply by coming as a bankrupt sinner to the Savior, trusting the Savior, and allowing him by his magnificent grace to put you in the Spirit of God and to put the Spirit of God within you. Thus do you become a member of the body of Christ, and being a member of the body of Christ, one of these days you'll wake up to find that you have, yes, you have a gift that was given you by the Lord himself when he incorporated you into his body.
Oh, let's not confuse things. Our being in the body does not depend upon our gift. It's the other way round. First we get into the body, and then we discover because we're in the body, we have a gift. So you don't have to be a Billy Graham, and you don't have to be a Mary Slessor, and you don't have to be a David Livingstone sir or a Spurgeon in order to feel secure and accepted, and to be sure you're a member of the body of Christ. Isn't that delightful? God doesn't want slaves, you know. We don't earn our position and our entry into the body of Christ.
And if the ear shall say, because I'm not the eye, I'm not of the body, it is not therefore of the body. Silly old ear. There wouldn't be an ear unless it were first in the body, would it? How does a baby's body grow? It doesn't grow by collection of ears and feet all stuck together with Yoo-hoo glue. It grows as the body grows, and presently there comes an ear. In the body first, and then the gift is developed. And actually, of course, we can all see it in our karma moments, can't we?
Uh, in spite of what the foot and the, uh, and the ear say. You see, if the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole body were hearing, where were the smelling? Everything would be grotesque, wouldn't it? If all the body were teachers, there would be nobody to be taught, and there would be no need for teachers, so we could all go home to heaven. Perhaps that would be a good thing, but for the time being, there's got to be different gifts in the body, haven't there? But now look at what verse eighteen says. But now has God set the members, each one of them in the body, even as it pleased him. Have you never felt, my brother, my sister, a certain frustration?
You wish you were somebody else. Ah, you wish you had, I mean, a lot of fun, isn't it? After all, they can say what they like. Fancy being a great evangelist and being able to point to fifty six assemblies that you've planted, you'll say, or something like that. So many souls you've brought to the Lord. Marvelous. They can say what they like. It's marvelous, isn't it? Have you never felt a bit of frustration and envy, and I wish I were one of them, and I wish my personality were only different. I feel so inhibited, and I've not got the big gifts that the others have got. Yes, and you'd like to be somebody else? There was a program on BBC once, forget what it was called, do you see, and people were asked that famous question, if you weren't you, who would you like to be?
You'll see. Well, I pondered that, not that I had any chance of getting on the BBC, but I pondered it for a while. Now, good thing I said to myself, if you weren't you, who would you like to be? And after thinking a while, I said I'd like to be me. Yeah, really. Yes, there have been moments when I'd like to have been you, but on sober thought I decided I- I'd like to be me, and I'll tell you why. Because this verse says, now has God set each member in the body as pleased him. Ah, that's the thing. Why do I want a gift at all, hey?
What do you want it for? You say it would make me feel better if I had a big gift. Is that what you want it for? This is better, isn't it? You'll set in the body as it pleased God. See that little violet, a blushing in the grass and scarce noticeable. How did it come to be a violet, and why wasn't it an oak tree or an almond tree full of blossom? Why was this thing a mere daisy? And the answer is, it pleased Almighty God.
Oh, what a thing it is. My dear sister, my brother, just now, this moment, in your heart of hearts, raise, raise your spirit to the Father himself. You are as to your gift. What pleases God you should be. You don't have to... a John Wesley, nor a Charles Ryder, to please God, you know. Take the greatest apostle and, uh, add to him the biggest deacons that you can manage to meet and put them all together in one bundle, and in the end of the day, what have they done, save to please God?
In that, you and they are equal. God gave you your gift as pleased him. Old friend, there's no greater goal in life, there's no greater raison d'être, no greater reason for existence than this glorious thing. I please God. He put me in the body as pleased him. I'll be a daisy then. I'll be a Pekingese dog. And let anybody else who wants to be an Alsatian or an elephant be the Alsatian and the elephant.
I'll be a Pekinese, if it pleases God, that I shall be. Oh, when we all get home to the heaven and many gifts have long since disappeared, this shall be our eternal joy that we, each one, please God. I consider what a dignity it gives you, what a glory it sheds on your gift, whatever it be, in the routine and the humdrum thing of life, as you may count. God has put you in the body as pleases him.
And then Paul puts the other side, doesn't he? And having a word in the ear of those who think or feel sometimes, are tempted to feel at least, that they are superior. And gently he chives them, and he says in verse twenty one: and 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. Nay, much rather those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary. It can happen sometimes that people with superior gifts or greater gifts fall to the notion that they don't need other gifts.
That's quite false, isn't it? And I ask you to remember the context of this. That long list of gifts that we read at the end of chapter twelve, bear in mind that's what Paul is talking about. You must not say, says Paul, that you don't need any of those gifts. Ponder that well. You must not say of any gift, we have no need of you. That is Paul.
That is inspired scripture. All gifts given by the Lord himself are given by his deliberate intention. We must not take it upon ourselves to say that we don't need them. Indeed, those feeble parts of our body, the parts that seem to be more feeble, are not tolerable, but necessary. I'm no anatomist, but you'll say I've often pondered, when occasionally I've allowed myself to dip in books of anatomy, what the vermiform appendix is for.
Don't know if you've worked it out. Okay. When I was a boy and science was in its primitive stages, even the learned decided that vermiform appendices were no use whatsoever, and the medics would have to ha- happily cut them out or say. Ah. Now the more learned have found out that, yeah, the only form of appendices, you see, have an actual function in the body. They are not the survivals of evolution. They have a real practical function in the body. And Paul is making the point here that even the weaker members of the body, the things that seem feeble are necessary.
Oh, that helps me, you know, with my little gift, to say when I fall into despondency and discouragement, I don't have to apologize for myself. Why am I? I am necessary. I will betide any fellow member of the body of Christ that dares to think that they don't have need of me or you. All are necessary. And what is more, when it comes to the human body, some of our more beautiful parts that generally belong to the face, you'll see, seem to be there largely for decoration, and others that are not so, uh, beautiful.
We naturally defend their weakness, don't we, and adorn them the more. So has God tempered the body together. God help us to lose that sense that we can be independent of our fellow believers, and we don't need them. We do. And certainly, we are to value each one and to honor each one. And if any appear the more feeble, we are to do what God does and bestow on them more honor.
For it is the fact, whether we sense it or not, that just as with our human body, if one member suffers, the whole body eventually is involved in the suffering. So it is with the body of Christ, if one member suffers, all are thereby suffering and to some extent suffer loss. So far then, and Paul now comes to sum up this part, uh, o- o- of his subject. Now, says he, you are body of Christ and individually members thereof, and God himself therefore has set various gifts and people in the body.
Are all apostles? No, of course not. Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. Are all workers of miracles? No. Have all gifts of healings? No. Do all speak with tongues? No. I notice that as we go by. He doesn't say do all have the gift of tongues. The answer would still be no. But he says do all speak with tongues? No. Do all interpret? No. Our gifts are different. We mustn't say that none of them is not necessary. God has placed them in the body as he will. We need them, we need the variety.
But with that, you will notice a big change that now comes over Paul's discourse. Says he in verse thirty one: while all gifts are necessary, desire earnestly the greater. Now with a new concept, and we must be patient with it. All gifts are necessary. We cannot say of anyone, I don't need you. All are necessary. Each has its divinely given function, but there are some gifts that are greater than other gifts.
They're all necessary, but some greater than the others. And chapter fourteen is going to turn on this distinction, so we ought to spend some careful time now considering in what sense he means greater. We could start with the illustration of our body, couldn't we? Once more, the human body. Every member is necessary to a concrete body. If you're going to have a complete body, it must have four fingers and a thumb on one hand and four fingers and a thumb on another hand to be a complete body. But there's no good hiding the fact, is there, that whereas my little finger is necessary to a complete body, there are some members of my body that are, are greater than my little finger in their function and the importance of their function, yes?
You could cut off my little finger, and I should still be alive, and most folks wouldn't notice it. The little finger is a very important member of my body, of course. It is the finger on my hand that is more powerful to grasp things than any other finger, perhaps. You put your, your hand in the way of a little baby's hand, and he'll get his finger around yours, won't he? And you'll feel the tug even of a baby. That little finger is the one that grips. So this is necessary. But you could cut off my little finger, and I should still survive. You can't cut out my brain and it make no, well, perhaps you can, but you can't, you can't cut out my heart and it make no difference, surely, can you?
My heart has a bigger gift and a more important function than my little finger. And therefore we have to face this in the body of Christ. Some have gifts that are bigger and more important. And therefore, when it comes to seeking him, we are now told to desire earnestly the greater gifts. And again, at the beginning of chapter fourteen, desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy.
We shall come back to that later. What practical effect is that going to have, first of all, on my use of the gift that God has given me, and in my seeking of gift? I am to go for the greater gifts. Before Paul gets around to talking about that, he brushes this aside for the moment to speak of the principle which supremely above all other principles is to be our guide, both in seeking gift and in using gift.
Look at verse thirty one again. Desire earnestly the greater gifts and a still more excellent way I show unto you, that excellent way being the way of love. Now, I shall not need to convince you that chapter thirteen of first Corinthians is an exceedingly delightful chapter, where Paul, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, allows free rein to the praise of this glorious virtue and activity that is love. It is quoted all the way around the world. You'll see it on calendars, you'll see it in books of poetry. The praise of love, the greatest thing in the world, as Henry Drummond called it.
Somehow I felt that Paul here, like a bad preacher such as one that stands before you, suddenly got an idea in his head, and it was such a marvelous idea, this idea of love, that he forgot what he was talking about, and he wandered all over the place and went pursuing love, and only after he had wandered a long way did he come back to what he was meant to be preaching about. There are preachers like that, of course, God said, but not Paul. Though he spends a whole chapter on this matter of pursuing love, he's not wandered from his topic. This lies at the very heart of our subject. You're seeking a gift, my dear brother, my dear sister.
Pray tell me, why are you seeking it? What are you wanting it for? Says the divi- the divinely inspired apostles. But if you're wanting that gift out of any other motive but love, you are offending against the basic principle of Christian living. What do you mean, you say?
Well, why would you want a gift? Take the gift of evangelist. Why would you want the gift of an evangelist? You say, I think it's marvelously good. You know, I'd like to preach. I, you know, I enjoy standing up there and preach, and I feel it would do me a lot of good. Well, actually, it would, you know, being an evangelist. Uh, to say to, to, um, preach, it will certainly do you a lot of good. Or if you were a teacher, yeah, it will do you a lot of good teaching the Word of God. To say, sometimes when I myself am studying the Word of God and the Lord shows me some delight in his Word, I can scarce bear to sit still on the seat, but get up and prance around my room and, you know, raise my fist and come to the congregation, and there's nobody there, and preach this, and it's marvelous.
I hope the angels are listening, but I'm doing it just because I enjoy it, yeah? And you can't be used of God to preach the gospel effectively, and folks come to the Savior without it doing you an immense amount of good. But you see, why should I want the gift of evangelism? So that would it do me good? No, no. You see, let's get it clear. You don't have to have the gift of an evangelist to get saved, do you? Who gets saved without having the gift of an evangelist? You don't have to have the gift of teacher in order to learn the word of God.
Any dear believer can learn the word of God. The gift of evangelist is given that we might help other people. The gift of teacher is given that therewith you may teach other people. Yes, you don't have to have the gift of an evangelist to be saved. You'll need the gift of an evangelist to preach the gospel publicly to people, that they get saved. In a word, the first prime purpose of having a gift is that you may use it for the benefit of other people. And that's what love is, isn't it?
Why is love the supreme motive? Because the motive that ought to guide us in seeking gift and in using gift is love of the other person. What's the good of having a gifted evangelist if I'm just up there in my bedroom and you say, you come up the stairs unbeknownst to me, and you hear this row going on behind my bedroom door, and you say, what is good in it doing? And here he is saying, flee from the lost to come and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved and you will be forgiven. You say, I wonder who he's preaching the gospel to.
You knock on the door, there's no reply. So you open it quietly, look in, and there's just me and nobody else there, and I'm holding forth tremendous gusto. You say, is the man all right? He's gone a little bit over the edge. He may have the gift of evangelist, but what's the sense of using that if there's nobody to preach to? You say, Goody, what are you doing? I say, I'm preaching the gospel. You say, whatever for? There's no unconverted here. You say, oh, I don't mind about them, whether they get converted or not. You see, I enjoy it so much, it helps me. Well, you'll say it's gone a little bit queer, but he's a good brother nonetheless. He's necessary. I will say, ah, ah.
No, no. If we love, then we shall see to it in our seeking of gift and our use of gift, our prime motive is to love other people and use it for the good of other people. So true is that, that Paul has three very serious things to say about those of us who use our gift or seek it without that motivating love to serve other people. Says he, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels that have not love, I am become mere sounding brass or a clanging cymbal, just noise.
An unpleasant noise at that. For all the good it does, just noise. Oh, how I've got to listen to that, haven't I? Rest in using my gift, even tonight, without loving you, my brothers, my sisters. I'm just making a lot of noise, that's all. And if I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, spectacular gifts, but have not love. I am nothing.
As far as the body of Christ goes, it is as though I were nothing at all and had no gift, a mere cipher. Why? Because if I don't have love, and I use my gift without love, I'm not helping others. I'm not helping the body of Christ. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. You will notice how exact Paul's words are, won't you? He doesn't say it doesn't profit the poor, because if you give the poor all your goods, it will profit them, I suspect.
It won't profit you anything. I wonder how far that principle extends to all our service. If I do it without love, then it profits me nothing and shall not profit me in the hereafter when I stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Oh God, help me. That in all the use of what gifts God has given me, I learn to use it out of love for others, lest in diverting it to myself, I seem to gain here, but find when I stand before the judgment seat of Christ, it has profited me nothing.
I shall not now attempt to go through the lovely description of love that is given us here in those next verses. These are things to be prayed over in the presence of God, surely. I come to the final verses, where Paul is telling us from eight onward that many a gift will disappear, whereas the permanent thing that never fails and never shall fail is love. Says he, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.
The love never fails, nor will it. Now, I could have wished that at this late hour in the meeting, I could give you some simple explanation of these verses, but honesty forbids it. For when it comes to this matter of love lasting, whereas certain gifts are done away, there have been two major expositions and interpretation of what the apostle says. And since both interpretations have been held and advanced by godly and able teachers of the word, with all sincerity, it would perhaps be impertinent of me to say that one is right and one is wrong, and simply give you the one that I personally think is right.
I shall tie your patience, therefore, this next ten minutes by putting both views. Each view has, of course, many subdivisions and permutations. I shall seek Christian grace not to worry you with them, but simply the main two views, their pros and their cons, and leave you before God to make up your mind which you think is the correct one. The difference turns largely on how we are to understand the word that which is perfect. When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away, says the apostle.
What does he mean when he uses the term that which is perfect? And what does he mean when he says when that which is perfect is come? View number one. This is not the view I personally hold, and therefore I shall do my very utmost to represent it as fairly as I can, and those of you who hold it and feel that I haven't done it justice, well, forgive me in advance, if you will, you'll say. I'll try my very best. View number one says that which is perfect is the completed canon of scripture. And the phrase when that which is perfect is come means when the New Testament canon is finally complete.
What is our people's reason for thinking it means that? Well, consider, if you will, what Paul says in Ephesians chapter four. Gifts are given to the body of Christ, says Paul in Ephesians chapter four, for the work of the ministry, to get all the members involved in serving the Lord and to build them up until we attain unto the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, but speaking truth in love may grow up in all things into him which is the head, even Christ.
View number one, therefore. Paul is thinking about the early Christians, and as yet they haven't got the complete New Testament like we've got. They've only got bits and pieces of it. And because of that, God gives special gifts, prophets and tongues and such like things and knowledge to help these believers who have such a little part of the New Testament. But as the New Testament is written, God inspires Paul to write his letters and Peter to write his and John to write his and the gospel writers to record the life of Christ. As gradually the canon is built up, so the early Christians cease to be mere spiritual infants, trusting the Lord but not knowing exactly what they believed, and therefore being tossed to and fro by all sorts of false theories.
As the canon was built up, so the believers grew and grew up into Christ and became adult in their beliefs and in their knowledge and in their spiritual stature. And when the full canon eventually arrived, because now the believers were grown up adults, or at least could be if they applied themselves to the canon, then gifts like prophecy and tongues and knowledge were no longer required. They were only temporary expedients that, uh, were superseded by the coming of the canon, when that which is perfect is come.
I want to remind you all that many godly, responsible, exceedingly knowledgeable interpreters of Holy Scripture have held and still do hold that view. I personally do not hold it. I incline to the other view, and if you feel that is a disaster, then my brother, my sister, pray use your God-given gift out of love for me, if you can still love me, and come and help me to see the truth. Why don't I believe it? Well, in the first part, because if you're waiting for the canon to be complete, what do you mean by the canon?
The whole New Testament canon was not finally put together until the third or the fourth century AD. It was many years in different countries before the believers had the whole of the canon. And what would you mean? Would you mean s- as long as, uh, as soon as Paul and Peter had put the last full stop to the canonical books of the New Testament, then the gifts of tongues and knowledge and prophecies forthwith ceased around the world, whether they possessed these books or not. Or did the disappearance of the temporary gifts only come about in each country at different times as believers in different countries at different stages in history eventually received the complete canon.
The question of when that which is perfect came, therefore, carries difficulties with it of how you interpret it. But let's look at what convinces me finally, are the comparisons that Paul makes at the end of chapter thirteen. In verse nine, for we know in part and we prophesy in part. So here Paul is contrasting the amount we know, yes? When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part should be done away. First then, the amount we know in part.
We prophesy in part. That is the amount we know. When that which is perfect is come, we shall no longer know in part. We shall know completely. It's the amount we know. Secondly, when I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I fought as a child. Now I have become a man, I have put away childish things. That's not the amount, that is the mode, M-O-D-E, the mode of knowing and speaking. Knowing and speaking as a child, knowing and speaking as an adult.
The mode of knowing. And thirdly, for now we see in a mirror darkly, but then face to face, that's not the amount nor the mode, it is the medium of knowledge. Let's think of, think of those three then briefly. The amount that we know, the mode that we know, and the medium through which we come to know. The amount we know. Now we know in part, says Paul. And they who hold to the completed canon theory, they interpret the verse this way round, that when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, of course, the whole of the New Testament was not yet written.
Indeed, he himself hadn't written the epistle to the Ephesians, the epistle to the Colossians, and the epistle to the, uh, Philippians. And therefore, Paul is saying we only know in part, but when the rest of the New Testament is written, we shall know in full. I see. Now I think and speak as a child, he says, but when that which is perfect is come, I shall put away childish things and think as an adult. Let's follow the implication. When Paul was in Corinth, he'd already written the letters to Thessalonica, all about salvation and the Lord's second coming. He had, was in process of writing the Romans on how we're justified and the future of Israel and the eventual conversion of Israel and so forth, and the restoration of creation.
Then he wrote to the Corinthians, and presumably he preached to the Corinthians very much what he wrote in the two epistles to the Corinthians, and taught the great resurrection and church principles and whatnot. Is it really enough to think that Paul, knowing all that, was merely talking as a child? But when at last he was inspired to write to Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, he put away childish things, and at last taught like an adult. How much did he not know of what was in Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians when he wrote to the Corinthians?
Ah. Oh, for my own part, I think it must refer that which is perfect must refer to what will be when the Lord comes. Now we know in part. Then we shall know even as we are known. Oh, my brother, I don't know it all, do you? You say you could do gooding if you were more diligent in your study of scripture. So now it's been my privilege to jog along beside great saints of God and marvelous, profound theologians, and the more they know, the more they'll tell you, but we don't know it all yet, David, do we?
No, there's coming a day when we will. Oh, my brother, my sister, let's forget the argument. It is the fact, all glorious fact, that one day we shall see the Lord, and we shall see him face to face. We shall know even as we are known. The amount we know. And secondly, the mode of knowing. When I was a child, I spoke as a child. When I became an adult, I put away childish things. I expect you've noticed it.
Here's little Tommy. He's all of, uh, 4 years old, five years old, and he has observed that, uh, his mother and dad, they live together, you see, and it's just about dawned on him they're married, you see. And so he informs you that he's now going to get married to Josephine. She lives around the corner, you see. Because he knows all about marriage, does, does the Tommy? Well, he can say the words. But listen to him, and you'll discover, of course, what you already knew, that little Tommy, while he talks about marriage and he's got some idea of marriage, that he's talking of it in the way a child would talk of it.
Why? Because he hasn't grown up, has he? There are things about marriage that little Tommy will never know until a few years are gone by. How do you know scripture? You say I'm an adult man, I've been on the road for fifty eight years. God bless you, my brother. Do you know everything as an adult? In our assembly, we are, uh, reading and discussing together the glorious pictures of the eternal city. We're doing our best to comprehend it. Anybody here that knows it absolutely and, uh, you know, completely, I'd be interested to talk to them.
I get the impression that when I try to understand what God talks about heaven, I do my best to understand the words, I get some idea of it, but the thing goes beyond me, as it must. And I shall not really know what those blessed word means completely until I get home to glory. How could I understand eternity? How could I even visualize eternal life and the glory of the Savior that shall be? Oh, but my brother, my sister, one day you shall. Tommy will grow up and find the words he used of marriage and love are true, there was no deception in it.
Oh, but he shall find them abundantly more than he ever realized or could realize as an infant, as an infant. And oh, what glory it will be when at last, having poured over our scripture and got some glimpse of glory, oh, what shall it be when we get home and everything we have read will be true. But how vastly more true, how vastly greater, when at last, with fully adult spirits, we survey that heavenly scene. And finally, the medium of knowing. Now we see through a glass, darkly or in a riddle.
The term glass is a mirror, of course, and in the ancient world, the ladies didn't have glass mirrors, as you know, or very few of them, they were too expensive. For mirrors, they had copper beaten out very carefully so it shone and reflected their face, you'll see. And a very important thing a mirror was then, as now, you'll see. There was a difficulty about those copper mirrors. You couldn't get them exactly flat, you know, so that when you looked in it, you said, uh, more often than not, that's a funny looking person behind my mirror. Who is that behind my mirror? That's never me, is it? For the nose had got a bit, you know, crinkly, uh, and the mouth was extraordinarily big, and the eyes seemed to be very narrow.
Yes, because the old, um, um, copper mirror not being beaten out absolutely flat, you know, distorted the image a little bit, and therefore, as you stood there, you had to learn to interpret it. Yes, my nose is not really like that. It's in that general position, but, you know, not quite that shape, thank the Lord, dossily. Uh, uh, uh, and on the whole, I look more handsome than that. You had to learn to interpret the riddle that confronted you as you looked in the mirror. Now, my brothers, we have God's holy word. I personally believe that it is inspired, verbally inspired, all of it. Are there any riddles left?
Or is it all so absolutely one hundred percent clear to you and to the majority of God's people that there's no room for interpretation. It's self-evident what it means, and everybody agrees on its exact meaning everywhere. Yes? Think not. Because many a Bible reading would go out of business. And some of you will go away tonight and say, I didn't enjoy that tonight because he didn't tell us plainly. He put two Jews now. Which one are we to follow? Yes, my brother. Why didn't I tell you one was right and one was wrong? Because of the old, uh, uh, defects in the understanding, you know.
And there is room for interpretation, isn't there? One day, there'll be no defect in the understanding, and there won't be looking through a glass, through a mirror, in a riddle. We shall see him. Face to face. Or let everything else fade tonight from our memories as we go, so long as this we catch sight of. You see, the whole purpose of gift is for edifying the church. Your gift, my sister, your gift, my brother, is to help me, to edify me and your fellow believers, and to prepare us each one for that wonderful day when we shall look face to face upon the person of our blessed redeemer.
Then you're no longer need teaching. You'll no longer need exhortation. All defects of understanding will be gone forever. Oh, what a day it shall be when at last I reach the purpose for which I was created. Tell me a bigger joy, if you can. Tell me a bigger objective for a human being to fulfill than at last to look upon the face of our blessed Lord, Creator and Redeemer. What's this got to do with my gift? Oh, my dear brother, my sister, if you've any idea of the glory that awaits me, the privilege that I shall be called to rise to.
You will pray God with all your heart to be given strength to love me, and so to use your gift that I might be helped, prepared, and developed for that great day when I shall be allowed in and admitted to the presence and see the blessed Savior face to face. The Lord help us all to use our gifts for that end, for his name's sake. Amen.
Shall we pray? O Lord, we have lingered long at thy word this evening. We thank thee for it. Much that we have read will in the immediate future disappear from our memories. Grant us, Lord, grace in the days to come to think further of these things, and by thy spirit revive them in our hearts. But above all, we pray that thou will keep before our heart's gaze that hour that comes upon us so speedily and will soon be here, when we shall see the blessed Lord Jesus, and seeing him be like him, when we shall enjoy him, with our faculties perfected in his presence.
To this end, give us grace to use our gifts in workmanlike fashion, not wasting our time, but in a heart led of love, that we might love the unconverted and use our gifts that they might be saved, that we might love our fellow believers and use our gifts, that each may be edified through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
