and to a different one faith, in [the power of] the same Spirit; and to another gifts of healing in [the power of] the same Spirit;
Paul is listing the gifts the Spirit gives to different members of one body. Here he names two: faith, and healings. That raises a question. Every Christian believes, so what faith does the Spirit give to one believer and not to another?
Commentators rule out one meaning first. This faith is not the faith that saves, because every believer has that.
The faith here is not simple faith in the gospel. That is not a special gift which one believer may have and another may not. This is clear. It is the faith, the energy, that God gives. It overcomes difficulties. It rises above dangers. It faces them and is not alarmed by them.
Another writer describes what that energy does. It is a grip on God that holds when everything is against you.
Faith is the power to take hold of God, to take hold of His word, and to count on Him in the face of every difficulty and every enemy. God the Spirit gives this faith to some. We are all believers, but not every believer has the faith Paul speaks of here. It is the faith that removes mountains. It is the faith that stands against Satan and puts out his flaming arrows. It is the faith that always wins. It is the faith that walks even on the waves of the sea.
Scripture also speaks of faith for one particular thing. That is where this gift meets prayer, and where people misuse it.
Scripture recognises specific faith about a specific thing. One of the people who received a miracle had faith to be healed (Acts 14:9). And 1 Corinthians 12:9 plainly teaches that there is a distinct spiritual gift of faith, which some have and some do not. Perhaps this is the special faith the Lord means when He says, "whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours" (Mark 11:24). Real, God-given faith is meant here, not mystical or imagined faith. Many have probably tried this promise as an experiment, only to be disappointed. But God does not give His promises and the power of His Spirit to be tested out of curiosity, or used to serve private ends.
Paul names the Spirit again with each gift. One writer asks why. (He quotes an older translation; the ESV reads "by the one Spirit" the second time.)
Then he says, "to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit." Why does this varied list repeat the words "by the same Spirit"? Because we so easily approve only of the one gift that pleases us, and forget how varied the Holy Spirit's work is.
The gifts of healing were real. Still, no one who had them could use them at will.
No one could use the gift of healing, or gifts like it, whenever he chose. These gifts appeared only at the right time, and they worked only by the direct will of God. Power is His, and always in His hands. When Trophimus was sick, Paul's wish could not restore him. Yet the believer can come to the Lord in prayer and claim His power. In time of need we must seek refuge not in God's gifts, but in the faithfulness of the Giver.
The same limit shows in the apostles' own lives. It also shows what the miracles were for.
It is worth noticing that the disciples never did miracles to save themselves from suffering, or to heal their friends when they were ill. Paul left Trophimus sick at Miletus. It was only God's mercy that healed Epaphroditus. The miracles the apostles did confirmed the testimony, and Christ glorified with the Father was the subject and source of that testimony.
The wording of the verse settles a claim often made today.
Some teach that every believer who receives the baptism of the Spirit shows it by speaking in tongues. But that is not what Scripture teaches. 1 Corinthians 12:9-10 says, "to another [not to ALL] gifts of healing by the one Spirit … to another [not to ALL] various kinds of tongues."
- One Spirit — Paul repeats "by the same Spirit" because we prize only the gift that appeals to us and forget how varied His work is.
- One faith, two meanings — this is not the faith that saves, which all believers share. It is an energy that rises above danger and difficulty.
- One recipient at a time — "to another" is not "to all"; no gift on this list is the mark of every Spirit-filled Christian.
- One hand on the switch — healing was never the healer's to command. Paul left Trophimus sick, and his wish could not heal him.
- One refuge — when need comes, the resort is not to God's gifts but to the faithfulness of the Giver.
and to another operations of miracles; and to another prophecy; and to another discerning of spirits; and to a different one kinds of tongues; and to another interpretation of tongues.
Five more gifts of the Spirit appear in this verse: miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, tongues and their interpretation. Each raises the same questions: what did the gift do, why is it placed here, and who received it?
The words translated "the working of miracles" mean, more exactly, powers in action. They cover more ground than the healings just named.
Another might have "operations of powers." The Rheims and King James Versions wrongly render this as "the working of miracles." These were not "healings." They were power over material things, or over spiritual beings, as promised in Mark 16:17-18 and shown in the Acts of the Apostles.
Prophecy is easy to mistake for prediction. Its main work reaches the conscience, and one writer holds that in this sense the gift continues.
Thinking of the Old Testament prophets, we may limit prophecy to foretelling future events. But that was only a small part of the prophet's work, even in Old Testament days. His great mission was to apply the word of God to the conscience and heart, to build people up. This is still the prophet's service in Christian times, and in this sense the gift continues.
Other ministry builds people up without being prophecy. The difference lies in what prophecy does to the conscience.
A man surely builds others up when he strengthens souls by holding up Christ and making His love better known. So does the man who exhorts or teaches well. But none of these things is prophesying. Prophesying is that character of truth which puts a man's conscience in the presence of God. It gives the soul the certainty that His mind is in what is spoken. It strips and lays bare thoughts, motives, feelings, everything.
This gift did not show whether a person was truly converted. It tested the source behind what was being said.
This gift is not about discerning whether or not people were Christians. It is about discerning whether the spirit by which they spoke was of God or of Satan.
The gift met a real danger in the early church.
This was one of the gifts in the early church, needed for "testing the spirits," because even then many false prophets had gone out into the world. 1 Cor. 12:10; 1 John 4:1-3. This gift was especially necessary at the time when the word of God was not fully written.
Tongues and interpretation are two gifts, not one, and they go to two different people.
The deliberate distribution of these gifts stands out in the last two. "Kinds of tongues" means a variety of languages the speaker never learned. It is set apart from "interpretation of tongues," which is given to another, though 1 Corinthians 14:13 suggests how desirable it is for the two to go together.
Tongues stand at the end of the list. That placement is deliberate.
Tongues, and the interpretation of tongues that completes them, come at the close of this list. That shows their relative importance from God's point of view. The primary gifts are always those that develop the church in love and faith and the knowledge of Christ. Scripture, on the other hand, always places the sign-gifts lowest on the scale, though people tend to value them differently and far too highly.
Tongues were a sign aimed at unbelievers. That shaped the rule for using them when the church gathered.
1 Corinthians 14 makes it clear that the gift of tongues was not only miraculous. It was also a sign to unbelievers, unlike prophesying, which was expressly for building people up. So it was forbidden to speak "in a tongue" in the Christian assembly, unless someone there could interpret the unknown language for the profit of the saints. The sign-gifts are the ones the Holy Spirit has seen good to withdraw. He still grants all the others that are needed for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for building up the body of Christ.
Taken together, these writers hold that the sign-gifts were withdrawn. Prophecy remains, because it applies God's word to the conscience.
The repeated phrase in the verse is small but decisive. It is "to another," never "to all."
It is taught that every believer who receives the baptism of the Spirit shows it by speaking with tongues. But that is not the teaching of Scripture. 1 Corinthians 12:9-10 says, "to another [not to ALL] gifts of healing by the one Spirit… to another [not to ALL] various kinds of tongues."
- One Spirit. Miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues and interpretation are not five sources. They are five gifts from the one Spirit.
- Power. "Working of miracles" is more exactly "operations of powers." It means power over material things and over spiritual beings, and it reaches wider than healing.
- Conscience. Prophecy is not mainly about foretelling. It applies God's word, so the soul knows it stands in His presence.
- Protection. Discerning of spirits judged the source behind what was said, not whether the speaker was a Christian. It mattered most before the word of God was fully written.
- Last for a reason. Tongues sit at the end of the list. Without an interpreter they were barred from the assembly, because a sign is for unbelievers and building up the saints matters more.
But all these things operates the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each in particular according as he pleases.
Paul has been listing the gifts God gives to Christians. Here he names the one source behind them all, and settles who decides who gets what.
The closing phrase claims for the Spirit what only God can claim.
Here it is what God does, not man. The Spirit gives to one the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another faith. To another He gives miraculous gifts, to another prophecy, to another the gift of tongues. "AS HE WILLS" covers all this. It is the assertion of sovereignty, an essential attribute that belongs to God alone.
A force cannot choose. Here the Spirit chooses, and that tells us who He is.
Many passages prove His personality — a matter of great importance, often lost sight of by those who constantly speak of Him as an influence. Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3). He "apportions to each one individually as He wills" (1 Cor. 12:11).
The verse does two things at once. It spreads the gifts among many people, and traces them all back to one worker.
Here we see the unity of the Spirit. He not only distributes each gift to each person; He works all the gifts, so keeping up dependence on His power. We see no less His sovereign activity as a divine Person… Evil and error may have as many springs as there are men and demons with their varied and often conflicting wills, lusts, and passions. But the very same Spirit works all that glorifies Christ in these different gifts. He gives them out at His pleasure to each servant of the Lord.
Many gifts under one will is not disorder. It is God's own arrangement, and human systems tend to replace it.
God's order for His assembly is a variety of gifts, given to different people, exercised by one will — the power and will of the Holy Spirit. All true order in the assemblies of God's people is the outcome of God Himself working among His people. The Christian world at large ignores this order in practice, if not in doctrine. It does so by its human arrangements, its appointed ministers and its fixed ritual.
The words "to each one" leave no group outside. Yet church practice has often marked off one class of Christians from the rest.
Setting aside a special class as priests limits the action of the Spirit of God to one class. It plainly contradicts the Scripture, "who apportions to EACH ONE individually as HE wills" (1 Cor. 12:11).
If the Spirit decides, no one at Corinth had grounds for self-display.
The Corinthians, unmindful of these truths, wanted to exercise the gift of tongues for their own exaltation and self-glorification. Yet what was it but a gift given to them, and by the Spirit just as He would? In truth, every gift was what its name meant — charisma, a favour. The Holy Spirit granted it to the one who had it, just as He chose. The person had not deserved it, and could not claim it. He only received it. Each gift of the Spirit was for the profit of all.
The Spirit chooses freely. That does not mean He is careless about whom He uses.
God is sovereign in His choice of instruments, true; but He morally fits the instrument for the purpose He has in view… So it is always true that in giving His gifts the Holy Spirit "apportions to each one individually as He wills" (1 Cor. 12:11). It is equally true that for the exercise of these gifts He selects those whom prayer and the diligent study of His word have fitted for His service.
This truth also ends copying and fault-finding among Christians.
The Holy Spirit is Sovereign, but He does not work in one member independently of all the others. I think no two gifts are alike. There are varieties of gifts, but one Spirit, and He alone has distributed them. We would do well to pay attention to this, and to the fact that services differ while there is one Lord. Man cannot make gifts; God gives them… If we understood the differences of services, and that each of us is responsible to the Lord, it would keep us from imitating others, or criticizing them.
- One Giver. The same Spirit works every gift on the list, loud or quiet. The variety is wide; the source is one.
- One Will. "As He wills" claims sovereignty, which belongs to God alone. It shows the Spirit is a Person who chooses, not an influence.
- One Reach. He gives to each one. No believer is without a gift, and no special class can own what the Spirit hands out.
- One Response. A gift is a favour no one deserved or could claim; it was never given for self-glorification, but for the profit of all.
- One Result. The Spirit alone hands out the gifts. Knowing that cures discontent with our own place and criticism of everyone else's.