Who are you, Lord? (Acts 9:1-31)

What do Christians mean when they say that Jesus is Lord?

The story is told of a group of tourists wandering through corridors of the House of Lords only to encounter Lord Neil Kinnock, dressed in ceremonial black robes and a white wig after a session at Parliament. A friend sees Neil from afar and calls out to Lord Kinnock to attract his attention. “Neil! Neil!” he cries out to him from across the hall - upon which the group of tourists promptly fall to the ground on one knee!

In the passage we looked at last Sunday from Acts Chapter 9, Saul of Tarsus falls to the ground - he falls to his knees - upon encountering the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Saul does not recognise who it is who stands before him. Yet, curiously enough, Saul address him as Lord.

“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” he replied.
Acts 9:5-6

In this passage, we learn four implications of the lordship of Jesus Christ. Jesus is lord over our ignorance. Jesus is lord through his death on the cross. And Jesus is lord over the church.

1. Jesus is Lord over our ignorance

In Galatians, we learn that Saul “was advancing in Judaism” beyond many of his peers (Galatians 1:14), meaning, he scored top marks in all his theology exams at Cambridge. As an esteemed member of the religious party known as the Pharisees, Saul of Tarsus strictly observed the law of Moses - putting into practice all the traditions of his father into everyday life. This would have included offering up the prescribed worship and sacrifices at the temple and keeping the Sabbath laws and the Jewish food laws.

Yet for all his religious zeal and piety, Saul did not know Jesus. If anything, his religious upbringing had only served to turn Saul against Jesus. It had made him reject any notion whatsoever that Jesus could be God’s chosen king, much less, that Jesus could ever be God in the flesh.

It was only when Saul met with the risen Christ personally did he learn the truth of his ignorance and the folly of his rebellion. The encounter left Saul blind for three days, indicative of the sorry state of spiritual blindness Saul had experienced his entire life up to that point.

No amount of religious exposure can take the place of a personal encounter with Jesus. Don’t get me wrong. The bible clearly teaches that the Old Testament scriptures are able to “make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). Yet, Jesus says warns those who search the scriptures diligently thinking that in them have eternal life. To such diligent and able bible scholars, Jesus can say, “These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40)

When teaching the Scriptures in our church, bible studies and Sunday schools, we must pray for our friends to meet with the Jesus of the Scriptures; to encounter the one whom Scriptures testify to. Those of us responsible for teaching the Scriptures must take special care not to “innoculate” our hearers against Christ, that is, to give them just a small taste of religion - just a small dose of spirituality - but just enough to build up their resistance against the real thing. We want our friends, we want our bible study group members and we want our Sunday School kids to know Jesus. That’s why we open up our bibles because the bible is God’s word to us speaking about who Jesus is; about what Jesus came to do.

It means that when someone does meet Jesus for the very first time, they may have more questions than answers. “Who are you, Lord?” is an excellent question to ask because it is such an honest question. It is the question of a man humbled before his Lord. It is a question the Lord Jesus himself answers is such a personal and powerful way. Jesus chose to reveal himself to Saul. It was an act of great mercy and condescension but most of all, it was an act of revelation.

In answering Saul’s question, Jesus was revealing what it meant for Saul to address him as his lord. It meant seeing Christ’s glory revealed through his suffering. It meant understanding that Jesus became Lord through his death on the cross.

2. Jesus is Lord through his death on the cross

In his first public sermon at Pentecost, the apostle Peter stood before a crowd of thousands of his fellow Jews in Jerusalem and said these words:

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

Acts 2:36

Peter claims that Jesus entered into his Lordship by dying on the cross. In fact, what he says to all Israel is that they crucified Jesus - they killed him by publicly executing Jesus on the cross - but God made him Lord and Christ. The two events - the crucifixion and the coronation, as it were - are not independent of one another. God planned for both to coincide on the cross. Jesus was rejected. Jesus was raised.

When Saul meets Jesus on the road to Damascus, he encounters his Lord in magnificent glory and awesome power as light from heaven envelopes him and even blinds him. Saul has no choice but to fall to the ground in submission before Jesus’ majestic presence. This is the risen Christ who stands in the presence of God the Father, descending from heaven to meet personally with a mere mortal, this persecutor of Christians, this destroyer of the church (Acts 8:3) named Saul.

And yet, how does Jesus introduce himself to Saul?

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Acts 9:4

Jesus speaks to Saul, calling him by name. He knows Saul. Jesus has seen all that Saul has done and tried to do. He knows of Saul’s deep hatred of Christians (Acts (9:1). He knows Saul was there when the mob killed Stephen in cold blood (Acts 8:1). Jesus knows of Saul’s master plan to round up all the Christians in Damascus and transport them back to Jerusalem to face punishment and perhaps even, death (Acts 8:2).

But Jesus does not say to Saul, “Why are you destroying my church?” “Why do you hate Christians so much?” No. What Jesus says to him is, “Why do you persecute me?”

Such is the connection between Jesus and the church - particularly through their suffering - that Jesus can say that he is being persecuted. That, in a sense, he is being killed. That should not come as any surprise to those of us who know Jesus through his death on the cross. That’s how we first came to know him as Lord. He gave his life as the ransom for our freedom. His death was the means by which all the debt of our sin was fully paid. And the bible tells us that Christians become united with Jesus through the cross, as if to say, when Jesus died, I died. When Jesus was raised, I was raised. We are united to him - joined to him - through his death and resurrection on the cross.

What is so striking about this passage is that it reveals how Jesus is united with us in our suffering. As the church is persecuted, so Jesus is being persecuted. As we are rejected by the world, it is but an extension of the world’s rejection of Jesus as Lord.

To be clear, Jesus’ death on the cross was a once-for-all event in history. “Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrews 9:26)

And yet, Saul (who was later, better known as Paul) can write to the Colossian Christians, saying, “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” (Colossians 1:24) Our suffering does not pay for the sins of the world the way Christ’s did. But what our suffering does is display the sufficiency of Christ’s death on the cross. His suffering means my suffering is not wasted. His suffering means my suffering is not because I’m being punished, even though I know deserve to be punished for my sins, but that he has taken all my punishment upon himself once for all on the cross. His suffering means I can suffer - and I will suffer in this lifetime - but continue to boast in the midst of my suffering, knowing that it produces perseverance, character and hope, being reassured of God’s love for me every step of the way (Romans 5:1-5)

On the road to Damascus, Jesus reveals himself to Saul the persecutor as the Lord who is persecuted. And later on, Jesus says of Saul, “I will show him how much he (meaning Saul) must suffer for my name.” Anyone reading this would be forgiven for thinking that Jesus was punishing Saul for his past deeds - “He must suffer,” Jesus says. But unless we forget, Jesus reveals the reason for Saul’s suffering. It is for his name. Saul would become Jesus’ chief messenger of the gospel to the Gentiles. Saul would proclaim Jesus as Lord to the nations; as Lord over the nations. But with that privilege of proclaiming salvation in Jesus’ name comes the privilege of suffering for that name.

“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him,” Paul writes to the Philippians (Philippians 1:29), understanding how the core of our witness to Christ is our witness to Christ’s suffering on the cross, and the core to our witness to his suffering is our suffering for his namesake.

3. Jesus is Lord over the church

But finally, we see that Jesus is Lord over the church. For the focus is not solely, or I would argue, even primarily on Saul of Tarsus, despite the personal encounter and vision he has of the risen Christ.

The immediate next section (verse 10 onwards) focuses on Ananias, to whom the Lord also appears, to whom Jesus also speaks and gives specific instructions, this time to Ananias to go to Saul in order to heal him of his blindness and welcome Saul as a brother into the church.

And while Saul is featured again (verse 20 onwards) preaching and teaching in the synagogues at Damascus, escaping an assassination attempt at the city gates, then going down to Jerusalem, where he is viewed with suspicion but thanks to Barnabas, is eventually introduced to the apostles and gains the trust of the believers there, only to have the assassination attempt made on his life, this time by the Grecian Jews - while Saul is clearly the the focus of Acts here, notice that Saul quickly fades into the background again. By verse 30, Saul is shipped out of Jerusalem, back to his hometown in Tarsus, never to be heard of again till Chapter 11.

Why? Because, Acts wants to bring our focus back to the church.

Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.

Acts 9:31

The account of the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem beginning with Saul attacking the church in Acts 8 ends with peace, blessing and growth. Despite the difficult circumstances, God actually uses the persecution of Christians to spread the gospel across the country, such that the church expands to include the whole nation of Israel (Judea, Galilee and Samaria). God does this, not so much by punishing Saul, the person chiefly responsible for the outbreak of trouble, but by showing him mercy. Jesus reveals himself to Saul, graciously giving him of his Spirit (Acts 9:17) and commissioning him as his apostle to the nations (Acts 9:15).

It isn’t only to Saul that Jesus reveals himself as Lord, but also to his church, which enjoys a time of peace, which is strengthened, which is encouraged by the Holy Spirit, which increases in numbers. What a wonderful reminder of the sovereignty of Christ. Jesus has received all authority in heaven and earth from his Father and he is in fully control of the situation, using even the persecution of Saul to bring blessing and peace to his people.

Yet that isn’t all that verse 31 says was a result of Christ’s lordship. You see, it also says that the church lived in fear of the Lord. Did you notice that? There was a deep awareness amongst the believers of what it meant to call Jesus Lord, of what his Lordship is meant to look like here in the church. It is seen in our growing submission to his authority. It is seen in the spread of the gospel.

Jesus said to his followers in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” I think there was a fresh understanding of these words then in the church as they saw Jesus carrying out his mission to the nations through their obedience and disobedience, through their growth and decline, through men like Saul and through martyrs like Stephen. Jesus was demonstrating his Lordship through the building of his church, which is his body. Jesus was demonstrating the unstoppable power of the gospel going out to the nations and establishing his kingdom here on earth.

One day, all creation will see him again and every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess him as Lord (Phil 2:10). But you see, Acts 9:31 gives us a glimpse of that reality today. It is seen right now, right here in the church, as men and women live under the Lordship of Christ, empowered by His Spirit, and they are sent out to proclaim salvation in Jesus’ name.

The final question (Matthew 22:41-46)

Every teacher, every politician and every pastor wants to know the secret of verse 46: “No-one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no-one dared to ask him any more questions.” How did Jesus do that? What did he say that made his strongest opponents go, “You got us there, Jesus. You win.” Actually, if you look at it again, they didn’t say anything at all. They were speechless! How did Jesus do that?

The problem is when we do look back to what Jesus said in verse 45, we still don’t get it. “How can he be David’s son?” that is what Jesus asks the Pharisees. Some of us don’t get it because we’re wondering, “Who’s David?” But even those who do know about David; who do know what Jesus is getting at, you are probably thinking, “Meh, so what? What is the big deal?”

So, the challenge for us today is not so much to understand the answer, but to get the question. Jesus gives us the answer first to think about, and then gives us a question to chew over. To help us do that, we are going to walk through today’s passage in three steps; looking at three questions:

1. What do you think? (verses 41-42)

2. Who is the Lord? (verses 43-44)

3. Who is your Lord? (verses 45-46)

1. What do you think?

Jesus begins by asking the Pharisees to think.

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

Matthew 22:41-42

To the Pharisees, this was a basic Sunday School question. How many disciples did Jesus  have? How many books are there in the bible? Where was Jesus born? It was the kind of question that had a standard answer. And the answer than they gave Jesus would have gotten them an A+ in Sunday School.

Now in case some of us here didn’t go to Sunday School - I didn’t, by the way, so you are in good company - the word “Christ” means God’s chosen king. Thousands of years ago, God promised King David in 2 Samuel Chapter 7, that one of his sons would inherit a kingdom that would last forever. And for thousands of years after that, all the prophets kept pointing forward to the coming of this king, called the Messiah in Hebrew, and the Christ in Greek. They taught their kids, “One day, God will send us a king like David. He will be the Christ. He will be the Son of David.” So, that’s the quick background.

When Jesus asked, “Whose son is the Christ?” These religious teachers who grew up in Sunday School, who were themselves Sunday School teachers... they didn’t have to open up their bibles. They didn’t have to go on Wikipedia and look up the history or the Greek word or the Hebrew translation. Every single hand in class shot up. “Ohh! Oooh! I know the answer. It’s David. He is the son of David!”

But they missed the question. Jesus was not asking them what they knew. He was asking them to think. “What do you think about the Christ?” The Pharisees gave an unthinking answer. Similarly today, if I were to ask the kids in our Sunday School, and go, “Jesus is the Son of....” every kid would probably go, “God!” That would be a right answer and a good answer. But at some point, we as Sunday School teachers and bible study leaders need to ask our friends “What do you think about Jesus as the Son of God?”

That is the question Jesus is really asking. And even though the Pharisees give him the standard Sunday School answer, Jesus doesn’t give up. He presses them further and asks them, “Who is the Lord?”

2. Who is the Lord?

He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord:
‘‘Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.”’

Matthew 22:43-44

Psalm 110 is the most popular psalm in the entire bible. Psalms are songs of praise, and Psalm 110, composed by none other than King David himself, was the kind of song that was played on every radio station. You heard it everywhere. Twenty-seven times, the New Testament writers quote from this single psalm, Psalm 110. Why? Because Psalm 110 is a song about the Christ. Only here, David doesn’t call him the Christ. He calls him “Lord.”

Jesus’ question is, “How can David call his son, Lord?” to which most of us today would go, “What’s the big deal? Why shouldn’t he call him Lord?” The word “Lord” can mean king, but it can simply mean, “Boss,” or as we would say in Cantonese, Lo Sai. Back home in Malaysia, I would call the owner of the coffee shop, “Boss, one cup of iced tea, please.” Nothing wrong with that. “Boss” is a term of recognition and respect.

But you see, here we do have a problem. A very big one, I might add. David was addressing his son as Lord. Today, if a businessman’s son does better than his father, we would call that good upbringing. His father would be proud to have a son who is more successful, more powerful, more wealthy than himself. A good father would want even better things for his son to inherit and to enjoy. But his son would still be his son. He would still be his father. The son should still honour his father and submit to his father. What he happening here in Psalm 110 is the direct opposite: David submits himself to his son. And Jesus’ question is: How can David do this?

The answer is, there is a second Lord in the room. A greater Lord. “The Lord said to my Lord.” Did you notice that. One Lord is speaking to another Lord. One Lo Sai is speaking to another Lo Sai. We know that the second Lord is the Christ. The question is, who is the first Lord?

To answer that question, have a look at Psalm 110 itself. Do you notice anything peculiar about the first line?

The LORD says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.”
Psalm 110:1

The first LORD is spelled out in capitals, see that? It is actually God’s name which was considered so holy and so awesome that anyone reading their Jewish bibles would have been too afraid to saying it out loud. So instead, they would say ADONAI, which, surprise, surprise... means, “My Lord.”

What is going here? God is the LORD who is speaking to the Christ, the second Lord. And what he says is, “Sit at my right hand.” You are going to rule by my side in my kingdom. Not only that, God says to him, “I will make your enemies bow down before you.” You see, in this vision that David writes down as Song 110, he sees God as the father and the Christ as his Son. And David bows down before them both and calls them, “Lord.” David submits to his son and calls him, “My Lord.”

Here is a king who would rule God’s kingdom. Notice as well, that this king has enemies. Unlike David, who conquered his enemies in order to establish his kingdom, what does God say to his Son? Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Meaning, the Christ will ascend first, the Messiah will rule first, and only after that will his enemies be conquered. In fact, verse 2 of Psalm 110 reads, “You will rule in the midst of your enemies.”

Earlier on, I mentioned a problem. A big problem. How can the son not submit to his father? Jesus gives us the answer: This Son is submitting to his Father, only his father isn’t David. His father is the LORD. God the Son sits at the right hand of God the Father. He listens to his voice of instruction. At the same time, God the Father gives his authority to his Son to rule and to reign.

Stepping back, Jesus is giving us a picture of the Trinity - of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, in relationship with one another. The Father exalts the Son and gives him glory over to him. The Son submits to the Father, ruling by his side. The Spirit bears witness to the Son, enabling David to testify to what he has seen and heard in scripture. This is the Trinity and it is a pretty amazing thing to behold.

Jesus is asking us, Do we see this? Do we see him as Lord? He is the one who willingly submits to God, his true Lord and his true heavenly father.

3. Who is your Lord?

Finally, we come back to big question. The question of questions.

“If then David calls him ‘Lord’, how can he be his son?” No-one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no-one dared to ask him any more questions.

Matthew 22:45-46

Why were they speechless? Most of them were speechless because they were probably shocked. It never occurred to them that the Christ was such a big deal. Some of them were probably flipping through their bibles furiously trying to find a response but unable to come up with a good answer - How can the Christ be David’s son?

But I wonder, if some of them were speechless because they realised what Jesus was really asking them to do. He was trying to get them to think... of David’s relationship to this Christ, and maybe even, their own relationship to the Christ. Of David’s relationship to God and their own relationship to God. Jesus was a in a room full of Sunday School teachers and he was saying to them, “This stuff that you are teaching your kids, do you believe it yourself?”

When David composed this song thousands of years ago, he wasn’t writing a kids song for his church’s Summer Holiday Club. This was worship. It was an overflow of his love for God. And when David considered God’s promise to him that one day, a son of his would inherit a throne and a kingdom that was infinitely more glorious than his own, David bowed down and worshipped. “My Lord.” That’s what he called him.

This week has been a tiring one. We had fifty-plus kids join us at our Summer Holiday Club. Teachers, helpers, organisers, cooks, teaching-assistants, parents all worked hard to bring the kids together and help them to know Jesus. I think Jesus would ask you today, as he did with the Sunday School teachers in his day, is the bible just another syllabus to cover? Is it just another thing we do every year, once a year, to keep the children occupied? Is it hard work and that’s it?

Or... is it worship? Sadly, I think in Jesus’ day, they didn’t get it. The Pharisees were speechless because they were outmatched. But I hope we do. David saw the Christ and called him Lord. Meaning, are we bowing down before Jesus as our Lord? That’s what Thomas did after the resurrection, do you remember. He said, “My Lord and my God!” What did Jesus reply to him? “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Thomas saw Jesus in the flesh, David saw Jesus in the spirit, but as for us here today, we haven’t seen. What does Jesus say to us? “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” How are we to do this? John tells us:

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:31

In the book of Acts, Peter quotes this exact psalm, Psalm 110 - the exact same words - and says to the crowd, “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” He was using Psalm 110 to explain what happened on the cross. By dying on the cross, Jesus proved that he was the true king. To be sure, Jesus was a totally unexpected king. He was the King who died for his enemies. He was the kind of Lord who served his subjects. Peter says to the crowd, “It is this same Jesus whom you rejected and crucified, but whom God raised to be Lord and Christ.”

Every knee will bow

What does this mean for us? Well, let me ask you again the three questions I have asked us to think through.

A. What do you think?

The reason we read our bibles is not to find answers, but to think through the answers. You might have read Matthew’s gospel before. Read it again. You might have heard the gospel before. Hear it again. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2:7, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” God’s word shapes and reshapes our mind. His voice refreshes and renews our spirits. Jesus isn’t looking for good little boys and girls who will score 100% in bible quiz. He is calling his sheep who know his voice and obey his will.

B. Who is Lord?

Who calls the shots in your life? To call Jesus Lord is to submit to him as our King. What he says goes. He calls us to live holy lives. He calls us to speak boldly for the gospel. He calls us to love the church. Not simply because these are good things to do that will get us into heaven. But because we love him and we submit to his lordship.

C. Who is your Lord?

When someone looks at your life, do they see someone living selfishly just for themselves. Do they see someone complaining about their boss? Or do they see worship: Someone who does what they do out of joy and thanksgiving for all that Jesus has done for them?

Maybe some of you look at Jesus as say to yourselves, “I don’t want this King. I don’t want him to be Lord.” Remember Psalm 110. This King is already enthroned. Jesus is already Lord sitting at the right hand of his Father in heaven. One day, God will make all his enemies bow down before Jesus and confess him as their Lord. “Every knee shall bow, in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,” Paul says (Philippians 2:10-11). But that is not the invitation of today. Today, we have the opportunity to say to Jesus, “You are my Lord.” To do so willingly and thankfully. Today, we can still come to him at the cross, in his death and in his forgiveness and receive from him forgiveness, life and love.

Jesus Christ is Lord. One day every tongue will confess him as Lord. But today, we have the opportunity to respond together with David, to look to the cross, and say, “My Lord... and my God.”

My Lord, what love is this
that pays so dearly

That I the guilty one,
may go free

Amazing love oh what sacrifice

The Son of God giv’n for me

My debt He pays and my death He dies

That I might live, that I might live

(“Amazing Love”, Graham Kendrick)

The danger of spiritualising gifts (1 Corinthians 12:1-11)

[Spiritual Gifts – Part 1]

Charismatic controversy

Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.
1 Corinthians 12:1

There has scarcely been a topic more controversial and more confusing amongst Christians these past 50 years than that of spiritual gifts. And yet, Chapter 12 verse 1 has the apostle Paul clearly stating that he does not want Christians to be in the dark about spiritual matters. At the very least, this verse implies we should be willing to engage in conversation, or better still, be diligent in understanding clearly what the scriptures teach about the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian Church.

At the forefront of the debate on spiritual gifts is the movement commonly known as the Charismatic Church. Its name comes from the Greek word, charismata, literally grace gifts; but from the context of its use in 1 Corinthians, is usually translated in our English bibles as spiritual gifts. Wikipedia – though not the most reliable, nor accurate of sources for theological definitions – nevertheless succinctly defines Charismatic Christianity as a “doctrine that maintains modern-day believers experience miracles, prophecy, speaking in tongues and other spiritual gifts.” We will soon encounter these charismata in verses 9 and 10 of our study.

On the other end of the spectrum are Cessationists, who as the term implies, believe that the age of tongues, prophecy and miracles have ceased.

It must be said that both these definitions are somewhat caricatures. The charismatic movement stretches across Protestant and Catholic lines, adopts varied levels of practice in public worship and different churches draw different conclusions for the same texts that teach on spiritual gifts (including the one we are looking at here). Similarly, Cessationism may or may not imply the practical restriction of such gifts, and churches may come to adopt such a position on scriptural or purely empirical (based on observation) grounds.

Still, it is tempting to hear in verse 1, the apostle Paul berating the conservative Christian for their ignorance on spiritual matters, thus taking the side of the Charismatic Church. Agnoein is where we get the word, agnostic. His readers are uninformed, perhaps even, misinformed on this important issue to do with spiritual gifts.

Yet any casual reader of Chapters 12 to 14 will immediately see a problem with that view. The Corinthians were not stuffy, conservative believers bereft of spiritual experiences. Theirs was a gifted church. If ever there was a charismatic church to be found in the New Testament, it was this one. Right from the beginning, Paul writes:

Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.
1 Corinthians 1:7

Paul’s opening remarks are therefore all the more striking. These Christians are not “noobs” when it came to spiritual gifts. And Paul says to them – to these Charismatic Christians, or you could even call them the CCCC, the Corinthian Charismatic Christian Church, as it were – Paul says, “I do not want you to be ignorant.”

Saying this to the Corinthians would be like saying to the Chinese Church, “You guys are ignorant about soy sauce!” And you would instantly reply, “But I’ve been eating soy sauce for years! Every meal I have has soy sauce in it. Every Chinese home has a big bottle of soy sauce – dark soy sauce, light sauce, sweet soy sauce, Kikkoman – I even have special soy sauce for chicken and a different one just for fish. What do you mean I’m ignorant about soy sauce? I’ve drunk more soy sauce that you’ve drunk milk!”

Yet, what Paul does not mean by ignorance, is absence. For the Corinthians, the problem is not that they don’t have evidences of these spiritual gifts. The problem is they don’t have insight. They do not know what it means to have spiritual gifts. So, it may shock you to know that Paul is speaking to gifted charismatic Christians, saying, “I don’t want you to be ignorant.”

But shocking still are the following verses.

Confusing confessions

² You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. ³ Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:2-3

Here Paul contrasts their deeper ignorance before they became Christians, when they were “led astray” to worship idols. It doesn’t mean they fully knew what they were doing. Back home in Malaysia and Singapore, temple worshippers frequent shrines and practice ancestral worship, simply out of habit. It is tradition, we might say. It is what we Chinese do, we say; this is what we have always done for years. We visit Chinese temples; we have Chinese altars in our homes. Like the Corinthians, we were “influenced and led astray”.

Paul is essentially saying to the Corinthians is: In the same way, this is exactly how you are now using your spiritual gifts – unthinkingly, unconsciously and as we shall see, unlovingly – using these gifts given by God without regard to their true purpose in the church.

These really are hard words coming from the apostle Paul.

But what shall we make of verse 3? How do these pronouncements (“Jesus be cursed” and “Jesus is Lord”) helpfully tell us anything about spiritual gifts? Moreover, how could such a test ever be reliably administered? Absolutely no-one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit?

The issue begins to clear up when we see how Paul is not narrowly dealing with spiritual gifts. The word used in verse 1 is not charisma, commonly translated spiritual gifts, but pneumatikon, a word that can broadly cover spiritual issues, spiritual matters, or even spiritual people. The question that Paul is answering in these opening verses is therefore: Who has the Spirit of God? Who is the truly spiritual?

The answer has absolutely nothing to do with spiritual gifts. In essence, this is the root of their ignorance. The Corinthians have equated the presence of spiritual gifts – in particular, the gift of tongues – with the presence of the Holy Spirit, hence making tongues the criteria for assessing an individual’s authentic spirituality.

But Verse 3 is there to outline the character – not the criterion – of the truly spiritual Christian. The truly spiritual Christian is the man or woman who confesses Jesus as Lord. The point is not that, simply making this statement turns you into a Christian – though this is true in and of itself as Romans 10:9 clearly states (“That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”)

But Paul’s more foundational point is that the Holy Spirit is the very enabling source of the confession, “Jesus is Lord”. It is God’s Spirit reforming ours that makes it even possible for us to turn to Christ and confess him as Lord and Saviour.

To put it simply, the spiritual person is the Christian. The Holy Spirit was responsible for the Christian turning to Christ in the first place.

Different distributions

Only after establishing the prior presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of any authentic confessing believer, does Paul move on to the manifestations of the Spirit in the life of the church.

⁴ There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. ⁵ There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. ⁶ There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
1 Corinthians 12:4-5

If all Paul wanted to say was that the Spirit gave different gifts (only here does the word charismata occurs for the first time in the chapter), there would be no need for verses 5 and 6. In fact, verse 7 (the manifestation of the Spirit) flows nicely from the argument of verse 4 (There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit).

Paul is therefore, not content, simply moving on to talk about charismata/gifts, but develops the definition of these gifts to include service (verse 5) and working (verse 6). Embedded in these verses, is the clear Trinitarian formula identifying the same Spirit, the same Lord and the same God as the single source and sustainers of these gifts.

Spiritual gifts are therefore not simply things or abilities. They encompass acts of service (verse 6) translating diakonion, which is a broad term that includes ministry in church (where we get the word for “deacons”) but also lowly table service (such as clearing dishes). “Service” ties in nicely with “the same Lord”, the focus of our service. We serve Christ; we glorify Christ through our service and through our gifts.

Spiritual gifts are also a work of God, literally, energised by God. I think of the Energizer bunny adverts. Without the energizing batteries, the pink toy bunny is lifeless and motionless, quite simply useless. God provides the work; God energizes the work, working all of them in all men. It expresses constant dependency on God who works all things for our good and his glory.

Finally, there are different kinds of these gifts/service/works, though the word diaireseis may imply more than mere differences or varieties (ESV) but distributions. The same God distributes the gifts of the Spirit across the body of Christ, such that they come together in service of God, but also as we will see in verse 7, in service of one another.

The common good

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
1 Corinthians 12:7

Paul summarises the distribution of spirituals gift/service/working as the “manifestation of the Spirit”; they display the Spirit in the individual (“each one”), but also in the corporate communion of believers. Verse 7 is the central purpose for spiritual gifts in the church. They are given “for the common good”.

What Paul is saying, therefore, is that God blesses us with spiritual gifts not simply for our personal encouragement and enjoyment. This is not wrong or sinful; yet this alone cannot be the purpose for our gifts. Rather, they are given us for the benefit of others in the church. They are given us for the common good.

Verses 8 to 11 therefore flow from this truth.

⁸ To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.

¹¹ All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
1 Corinthians 12:8-11

We come now to a list: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, spiritual discernment, tongues and interpretation. If you look down to verse 28, Paul provides a second list of spiritual gifts. Comparing the two, some gifts are similar but others differ.

Altogether there are five such listings in the New Testament – two here in 1 Corinthians 12; the rest can be found in Romans 12, Ephesians 4 and 1 Peter 4. Pulling them together, we can make a few useful observations.

Firstly, none of these lists are meant to be complete. You are not meant to look through the twenty-plus items in these lists in search for your personal spiritual gift. Many aunties from the Chinese Church will be disappointed to know that cooking isn’t listed amongst these gifts. Neither is music, taekwondo nor web design. More seriously, though Paul explicitly identifies marriage and singleness as two charisma given by God in 1 Corinthians 7:7, these are not found here either.

Secondly, we cannot reliably assign rank and importance to each gift based on their order of appearance. Simply comparing the two lists here in Chapter 12, healing and miracles swap places; prophecy is 6^th in the first list but comes in 2^nd (though personified as “prophets”) in the next. Still, there is purpose to the order, as we shall see near the end of the chapter.

The question is: Why does Paul include these gifts here, and not others? Picking up previously from verse 7, these spiritual gifts are specifically chosen as examples of the “manifestation of the Spirit”. Some commentators therefore conclude that these are spectacular displays of the Spirit’s working in the life of the church. The manifestation of the Spirit is seen through supernatural displays of power. I think it would be even better to say that Paul chose these gifts that manifest the Spirit’s supernatural power through the gospel. Let’s look at each gift individual to see how this is so.

Gospel gifts

Wisdom and knowledge are recurring themes in the 1 Corinthians, especially when paired with the word “logos” or message. The Corinthians were enamoured with the eloquence and wisdom of their local philosophers and debaters, yet were somewhat embarrassed by the foolishness and weakness of the cross. Paul responds with the gospel – the announcement of Christ crucified, proclaiming the word of the cross as the source of true wisdom from God and salvation for man. The Corinthians prided themselves in their knowledge about God causing them to stumble weaker Christians in their faith. Paul exposes their empty knowledge that puffs up, advocating instead love, which builds up.

Hence Paul is not speaking of wisdom and the message as intrinsic personal qualities. Rather the message of wisdom and the message of knowledge are given by the Spirit through the message of the gospel.

Faith is appropriately listed next, as the proper response to the gospel. It means to trust wholly and completely in God. Paul mentions faith in the next chapter (“faith to remove mountains”) which have led some commentators to differentiate this from confessional saving faith, instead pointing to faith that produces miracles. However there Paul paints a negative picture of such great faith in the absence of love – “I am nothing”.

Jesus says something similar in Matthew 21:21, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.” It must be said, the point there is not the amount of faith that results in the miracle, but the absolute and resolute faith in God alone – Jesus qualifies, “and (you) do not doubt”. The faith that results in miracles is first and foremost, single-minded trust in God, and I wonder if Jesus was there using hyperbole to rebuke the disciples for not having such simple undivided faith.

The gifts of healing is interestingly, in the plural – both words, “gifts” and “healings”. This may not mean that one receives the ability to heal others. It may simply refer to someone receiving healing (hence the plural – “healings” given to those who need healing.) This gift is repeated in the second list of verse 28, where unlike prophecy (there, rendered “prophets”), it isn’t personified. That is, there is little warrant in this verse to justify the position of supernatural healer within the church. The gift of healing is given. The gift of being a healer is not (as much as the charisma of marriage does not refer to the art of match-making).

Miraculous powers – literally, “works of power” – is the same phrase found in Chapter 2, used to authenticate the Paul’s preaching ministry. There it is closely tied to the evidence of the Spirit working through Paul’s message of the gospel.

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
1 Corinthians 2:4-5

But what is the demonstration of the Spirit’s power there? Many will use this text to justify the use of signs and miracles, especially to accompany the preaching of the gospel; saying miracles authenticate the power of the gospel.

Yet Paul himself clarifies the true power of the gospel as the message of the cross in Chapter 1.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18

It is the power of God to save! The demonstration of the Spirit’s power, therefore is “your faith (that does) not rest on men’s wisdom but on God’s power” ie. the cross!

As tempting as it is to define miracles here as supernatural signs outside the preaching of the gospel, there is just so much evidence within 1 Corinthians itself that points to the supernatural work of the gospel. The Spirit changes hearts, engenders faith, and saves men and women through the cross. That is the power of God!

Prophecy is significant as Paul writes more extensively of this together with tongues, later in Chapter 14. Prophets in the Old Testament spoke on behalf of God. They were entrusted with his message and their job was to speak God’s words faithfully to his people. They were a select few, and often their job made them less than popular, especially when prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah were tasked with delivering messages of condemnation for Israel’s sinfulness and rebellion.

When we come to the New Testament, Hebrews 1 draws a sharp contrast between the past age of the prophets and last days of the Son. Jesus is the final and complete revelation of God. God speaks to us today by his Son (literally, in his Son).

¹ In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
Hebrews 1:1-2

In short, everything that God has to say, he has said (past tense) through Jesus. Now, how does this square with prophecy described here as a spiritual gift in 1 Corinthians 12?

Some see here the fulfilment of Joel 2, reflected in the events of Pentecost, recorded in Acts 2.

¹⁷ “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. ¹⁸ Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
Acts 2:17-18

The day of Pentecost was marked by the supernatural giving of the Holy Spirit enabling the believers to speak in “other tongues as the Spirit enabled them”. Peter therefore explains the phenomenon quoting the promises given through the prophet Joel that God would pour out his Spirit on all people, causing men and women to prophesy. In other words, Peter explains the tongues phenomenon by equating it with the gift of prophecy. In short, at Pentecost: Holy Spirit = tongues = prophecy.

What has happened here is 1 Corinthians 12 is that Paul has actually separated tongues from prophecy as two distinct gifts of the Spirit. The significance being, the tongues spoken by the Corinthians were different from those spoken by the first recipients of the Spirit. In Acts 2, men from various neighbouring countries, heard them praising God in their own languages. Conversely, the tongues spoken in the Corinthian church resulted in chaos and confusion.

Paul includes prophecy in this list, therefore, in anticipation of Chapter 14 when he will address the problem of tongues. We have here the beginnings of Paul’s argument in deconstructing the Corinthian’s misunderstanding of linking the presence of tongues as an essential criterion for the workings of the Spirit.

As for the nature of prophecy in relation to revelation, and what it looks like in practice in the church, I will come back to this when we study Chapter 14 in more detail. For now, we only note the distinctiveness of the gift of prophecy from tongues, yet its availability to all believers made possible through the giving of the Spirit.

Distinguishing between spirits often raises the question – What are these spirits? This text if frequently coupled with 1 John 4 (“Test the spirits to whether they are from God”) to explain supernatural battles with demons. This gift becomes a kind of inner sixth-sense, like Spider-man.

Keeping within the context of 1 Corinthians, Paul freely and repeatedly refers to his own inner “spirit” with which he prays (1 Corinthians 14:14, 15). He also speaks of the spirits of the Corinthians, as well as the spirits of prophets, always speaking of real people. And when you look at 1 John 4 in context, John is warning believers of false teachers, actual people leading believers astray. He calls them “spirits”.

The gift is not so much about spiritual beings, as it is about discerning spiritual teaching. Its use in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 John 4 refer to the ability to judge people’s words, motivations and doctrine specifically with regards to what they say to and about God.

Finally, we are left with tongues and the interpretation of tongues. In both lists found here in Chapter 12, tongues appear last. Charismatic scholars are quick to point out that this does not mean in any way that they are least in importance. II agree. The reason they appear last is because tongues are at the root of the problem in Corinth.

“Different kinds of tongues” literally says “various tongues”. But what are these tongues?

Some see this to mean human languages. We have briefly looked at Acts 2 when the disciples “began to speak in other tongues” (Acts 2:2). From the perspective of the crowds however, what they heard were their own “native language” (literally, dialects) – “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs” leading them to exclaim, “we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Glosso can refer to the physical tongue, but here in Acts 2, it means language, and is equated at one point with even dialects. The phenomenon is termed xenoglossia – the ability to communicate in a foreign language.

What most Charismatics see here is called glossolalia (literally speaking in tongues; laleo means “to speak” and occurs later in the second list in verse 28). This is an ecstatic utterance by the believer as an expression of worship, prayer and communion with God. Paul refers to “tongues of angels” in 13:1, leading some to believe this gift enables the speaker to communicate in a heavenly language.

Which is it here – glossolalia or xenoglossia? I’m not going to tell you. I will leave that issue for when we come to Chapter 14.

Partly because I’m still thinking about itJ But mainly because it would distract from the main point Paul is making here in Chapter 12. We can neither promote tongues as an essential gift, nor deny tongues as an authentic spiritual gift – whichever your take on this verse is. Still, we will come back to this matter in due course.

Many gifts, one Spirit

The bigger issue is this: Paul wants us to see that there are different gifts; not one. He does not want us to focus on the gifts, but on the Spirit.

All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
1 Corinthians 12:11

When it comes to spiritual gifts, the Corinthians were obsessed with one question: Who has got it? That was the danger two-thousand years ago, it is the same problem we face today; Not that there are gifts, but that the gifts that make us special. We think that giftedness makes us spiritual.

The danger with that is: taken too far, some may mistake their giftedness for their salvation.

Paul is concerned to answer one important question: Who has the Spirit? The answer is simply: The one who confesses Jesus as Lord. That is the only reliable evidence of the Spirit. All who name Christ as their Lord have the Holy Spirit. This is the one key truth Paul does not want any believer to be ignorant about.

But additionally, in dealing with spiritual gifts, Paul gives us two important safeguards. Firstly, gifts are given us for the common good. They are not there simply for our personal enjoyment, ego or status in the church. They are given us to serve others in the body of Christ.

But secondly, the Spirit manifests different gifts. Each one has a gift. But each one receives a different gift. We see this in more detail in the next study where Paul moves on from the gifts of the Spirit, to speak about the members in the body.