THE GRACE
GIFTS OF GOD, THE HOLY SPIRIT
Dr. W. A.
Criswell
1
Corinthians 12:4-11
12-27-81
We welcome the great multitudes of you who are with us in heart and spirit in
the First Baptist Church of Dallas. This is the pastor bringing the
message entitled: The Grace Gifts of God, the Holy Spirit. This is
the last in the series on pneumatology, on the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit. In these years, the pastor is preaching on the great doctrines of
the Bible. And I have divided them into fifteen major sections. And
this section on pneumatology closes with the sermon this morning.
Next Sunday we begin a new calendar year. And, on the first Sunday in the
calendar year, I always prepare a message entitled: The State Of The Church.
And this coming year is going to be an incomparable one for us. Next
Sunday morning we’re going to burn a note of $7,500,000 that we have paid
off. We don’t owe it anymore—we have paid it off!
And we’re going to cut that note square in the middle, we’re going to get us an
old-time bucket (like we fed hogs with when I was on the farm) and we’re going
to burn half of that note at the 8:15 service, and we’re going to burn the
other half of it at this service next Sunday morning.
Then we begin the new year without our manacles, and without our chains, and
without our shackles. It’s going to be the greatest, finest, year we’ve
ever known in our lives. So you be here, and we’ll celebrate and rejoice
and praise the Lord together—next Sunday morning, the first Sunday of the new
year.
The message is entitled, as I said, this morning: The Grace Gifts Of God,
The Holy Spirit. If you’d like to turn in your Bible to 1
Corinthians, chapter 12—the middle section of this letter to the church at Corinth—chapters
12, 13, and 14 are given over to a discussion of grace gifts. So he
begins with chapter 12: “Now concerning ton pneumatikon, my
brethren, I would not have you without knowledge.”
So the Lord intends for us to be instructed, and to be taught, in the things
concerning ton pneumatikon. The word for spirit is pneuma,
and pneumatikon (plural) refers to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, ton
pneumatikon (spiritual gifts).
In verse four, he uses
another descriptive word for them: “Now there are diversities of charismaton
(grace gifts), given to us by the same Holy Spirit.” The word for
“grace” is charis. Charin is an accusative form of it, and
we name a beautiful girl “Karen.”
Charis (grace) and the plural of it, applying
to gifts, charismaton (grace gifts)—now there are diversities, all kinds
of grace gifts, but the same Holy Spirit bestows them. Verse 11:
All of these work (glorify, build), all of them are
given to us by the one and selfsame (Holy) Spirit (of God, sovereignly
bestowed), dividing to every one of us severally as he will.
Any grace gift that I have is something
God has to bestow. I cannot achieve it—it has to be given from heaven.
What did you have to do with
whether you were a man or a woman? God did that! What did you have
to do as to whether you were born a hundred years ago, or fifty years ago, or
thirty years ago? God did that! You had nothing to do with it at
all. What did you have to do with choosing your parents? God did
that! When you get to studying it, you’ll find out that practically all
of us, in our lives, is directed by, framed by, the sovereign election of
God.
That’s one of the great doctrines of the Bible we’ll preach on when the time
comes—the doctrine of sovereign election. We don’t like to think about
that, because we love to think that we did it. We do very little of it,
practically none of it. About the only thing that a man can do is to
yield himself to the sovereign purpose of God for his life.
Now he avows that concerning these grace gifts: they are from heaven—they are
from God—they are sovereignly bestowed. And they are diversified—they are
diversities of charismaton. You have one! You have
one! You may have several! Each one of us has a different grace gift.
God chooses it and fits it for us. Now, I pray God will help me this
morning as I take the passages of scripture in this Corinthian letter and try
to portray the spirit, and the heart, and the meaning of the apostle Paul as he
speaks of these ton pneumatikon and charismaton in the
letter to the church at Corinth.
It is a sadness, and it is a tragedy, to me that the ton pneumatikon
and charismaton, the grace gifts, the spiritual gifts of God, that they
are over-sown, and they are overshadowed by far-out extremism and fanaticism—by
abuse and by excess. That is a work of Satan: to over-sow and to shadow
out, by fanatical excess, the most glorious thing that God has ever done for
us. You see that in a current fact that if a man stands up to speak about
the charismaton, the grace gifts, the charismatic gifts of the Holy
Spirit, immediately you remember one thing. You remember the gibberish
that passes by, and for, so-called speaking in an unknown tongue. What a great sadness that these charismatic
gifts of the Holy Spirit of God should be so completely identified with
fanatical extremism, with gibberish, until we have lost the glory, and the
richness, and the fulsome-ness of what the Holy Spirit does for us. That
the extremity on the—and the excess of gibberish—unknown tongues is so
different from the Holy Scriptures—It moves, and it lies, in a different world.
Take your Bible and look at it just for a moment. It begins in the New
Testament with the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These
recount the ministries of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus. You will
never find even hinted or mentioned such a thing as a gibberish, as an unknown
tongue, in the life of John or in the life of Jesus. I could not imagine John the Baptist standing on the banks of the
Jordan River, announcing the messianic kingdom and doing it in an unknown
tongue. It is unthinkable to me that Jesus could ever have stood on the
mount and delivering the great Sermon on the Mount, or any other message that
He ever delivered, in an unknown tongue.
When I turn to the Word of God and look at these books, and books, and books in
the Bible—the one that I just had you read out of, the Book of Romans.
The Book of Romans is a formal, studied, systematic treatise on the doctrine of
the Christian faith. And I had you read a passage out of it. And he
named there some of the grace gifts of the Holy Spirit of God: prophecy, the
first one; ministering, the second one; teaching; exhortation; giving;
mercy. Not in all of this theological treatise will you find any mention
of, or any reference to, such a thing as an unknown tongue.
In the great, marvelous things that the Spirit of God does for us, He mentions
here teaching. Paul would say that a humble Sunday School teacher with a
group of little children does a greater service for the kingdom than any kind
of intrinsic, esoteric, ecstasy that he might enjoy in a solitary withdrawal.
He never mentions such a
thing in the great theological treatise called the Book of Romans. When I
turn to 2 Corinthians, it is never mentioned. When I turn to the Book of
Galatians, it is never mentioned. When I turn to the Book of
Ephesians—which is an encyclical, a letter to all the churches of all times—it
is never referred to. When I turn to Philippians, it is not
mentioned. If I read Colossians, it is not mentioned. If I turn to
1 and 2 Thessalonians, it is not mentioned.
If I read the Pastoral Epistles—which
is a directive to the ministers of the church—1 and 2 Timothy, Titus and
Philemon, it is never mentioned. When I come to the great doctrinal study
of the Book of Hebrews, it is never mentioned. When I read the Book of
James—the pastor of the church at Jerusalem and the Lord’s brother—it is never
referred to. When I read of Peter, 1 and 2 Peter, the great and chief
apostle never refers to it. When I read John (1, 2, 3 John)—the beloved
apostle who leaned on the Lord’s breast at the last supper—it is never referred
to. When I look at Jude, it is never mentioned. And finally, read
throughout the apocalypse that closes the Bible. It is never even hinted
at! Isn’t it strange thing how the Bible is so opposite, and moves in
another direction, from that strange fanaticism called the speaking in an
unknown tongue?
And then, let us see what
Paul says about such a phenomenon. Now, this isn’t I. This isn’t
from me. This is from the word of God! 1Corinthians 14:8 and 9:
If the trumpet give an
uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
So likewise ye, except ye
utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is
spoken? for ye shall speak into the air…
(verse 19) In the church I
had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might
teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.
Now you think of the proportion there:
“I’d rather speak five words with my understanding, that… I might teach others,
than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.”
Now you look at Verse 23—now I didn’t say this. This is the apostle Paul
writing:
If therefore the whole
church come together… and they speak with tongues, and there come in those that
are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mainia
(translated here mad)?
Mainia—we took that word and made “maniac” out of it—lunatic,
crazy, mad. “If the church come together and they speak with unknown
tongues, and there come in those unlearned, or unsaved, unbelievers, will they
not say that you are crazy—you are mad—you are lunatic—you are mainia?”
This is the verdict of the apostle Paul, and it is the substance, and the
meaning, and the revelation of the whole word of God—the whole Bible.
Now there is a great, and far-reaching, and significant assignment for the Holy
Spirit, and the Lord plainly delineated it in John 16, verses 13 and 14.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit:
When he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: he shall not speak of
himself…
He shall glorify me: for he
shall receive of mine, and show it unto you.
The tremendous, and meaningful, and
significant assignment of the Holy Spirit of God is this: “He will not speak of
himself…” He will not draw attention to Himself, but He will magnify the
Lord. He will glorify Jesus! He will lead us to our blessed
Savior! He will guide us to sit at His feet and to learn of Him.
That is the tremendous work of the Holy Spirit of God.
In the second chapter of the Book of Acts, on the day of Pentecost, the gift of
languages—the word for “language” and “tongue” are the same, glossa.
So in some places here it’ll be called “tongues,” in some places it will be
called “language”—that gift of languages, the miracle of languages, on that day
of Pentecost, was for one purpose; namely, that those who listen to their own
tongue might be told about the wonderful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s the purpose of that miraculous gift.
When the day of Pentecost was come, there appeared unto them three miracles:
The sound as of a rushing mighty wind, (the second) the tongues of fire that
lambently flamed upward, parting, burning on the head of each one of them; (and
the third) the gift of languages.
And they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began
to speak with other tongues, (other languages) as the Spirit gave them
utterance.
And they were confounded,
those people there, at that Passover season, at that Pentecostal season,
because everyone heard in his own language these marvelous words about Jesus.
They were amazed and they
marveled and they said…
How hear we every man in his
own tongue (in his language), wherein he was born?
Parthians, and Medes, and
Elamites… and Mesopotamians… Judeans, and Cappadocians, and Pontans and Asians
And Phrygians, and
Pamphylians, and Egyptians… and Libyans… and Cyrenians… Romans and Jews…
And Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in
our languages (in our own tongues) the wonderful works of God (the glory of His
grace in the Lord Jesus).
The purpose of the gift, the miraculous
gift of languages, at Pentecost was that the whole world might be made aware of
the glory of the Lord Jesus. And the whole moving, Spirit of God never
fails in that same assignment. He magnifies the Lord!
In the eighth chapter of the Book of Acts, we have the story of an official of
Ethiopia who had gone up to Jerusalem for to worship… (as the King James says, “for
to worship.”) And there he found a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
And, seated in his chariot, returning to the capital of Ethiopia, he was
reading Isaiah and was coming to the fifty-third chapter.And the Spirit (of the
Lord, and the Spirit of God) said to Philip… Join yourself to the
chariot. And he took the fifty-third chapter
of Isaiah, and beginning at the same scripture, preached unto him Jesus.
The Holy Spirit always guides us to the Lord Jesus. He glorifies the Lord
Jesus!
In the sixth chapter of this same Book of Acts, the deacons are chosen and
ordained. The office of diakonos begins there. And
the Bible says these men were full of the Spirit. How do you know they’re
full of the Spirit? Because they magnify the Lord Jesus: Immediately
after their ordination, you have the story of Stephen who magnifies the
Lord. Then you have the story of Phillip, the deacon, who finally became
called an evangelist, because of his witnessing to the Lord Jesus.
When a man is filled with
the Spirit of God, that’s what he does—He magnifies the Lord Jesus; he
witnesses to the grace of God in Christ Jesus; he rejoices in the wonderful
Savior of the world. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit of God—magnifying
Jesus, glorifying Jesus.
I read this last week of a
little boy who was lame and crippled in his feet. And they took the
little lad to a marvelous and wonderful doctor, a surgeon. And the
surgeon healed the boy by the grace of God—made the little boy well and whole
by the grace of God. And when the little fellow came home, all the folks
round were rejoicing that the physician had been able to heal the little
boy. He was perfectly sound, and whole, and well again.
And they’d say to the little fellow, as they’d talk to him, something about the
hospital. And he’d say in reply about the hospital, but he’d always add:
“But you should have seen that wonderful doctor.”
Then somebody else would talk to him about the kind nurses. And he would
say something about the kind nurses. Then he’d always say: “But you
should have seen that wonderful doctor.”
And then somebody would talk to him about the flowers and about the
cards. And he’d acknowledge that. Then he’d always add: “But you
should have known that wonderful doctor.”
Then somebody would speak to him about the visitors who came to see him.
And he’d comment about all the visitors that came to see him. Then the
little boy would add: “But you should know that wonderful doctor.”
That’s the way it is with the Holy Spirit of God in our lives. Always; He
says: “But ye ought to know the wonderful Jesus. You ought to see the
face of that glorious Lord.” He magnifies the Lord Jesus. He honors
and glorifies Christ our Savior. That is the work of the Holy Spirit of
God!
Now, it is not thinkable—it is not reasonable—that the Holy Spirit of God
should do one thing, that thing, glorifying the Lord Jesus and that the gifts
of the Holy Spirit of God should do something else. They would be the
same.
If the great assignment of the Holy Spirit of God is to magnify the Lord Jesus,
why, then the gifts, the grace gifts of the Holy Spirit of God in us, are to do
the same thing. They also are to magnify the Lord Jesus, to witness to the
Lord Jesus, to bring men and women to the Lord Jesus.
Now, that is the reason that you will find the apostle writing here concerning
his appeal that we covet, and that we pray for, the greatest and the best of
all of the charismaton, the grace gifts. Now listen to him as he
will say—closing the twelfth chapter—he will say: “Covet earnestly the best
gifts.” Remember; he said; they are sovereignly bestowed. I can’t
create them for me. God has to give them to me. So he says, “In
your heart and life, earnestly seek after, covet, the best gifts.”
Well, what would that be? He begins the fourteenth chapter with the
naming of it:
Follow after love (agape)
[which is the thirteenth chapter], and desire ton pneumatikon (the
spiritual gifts), mostly, and above all that ye may prophesy.
That is the first, and the marvelous,
and the pristine, and the primary of all of these gifts of the Spirit.
Isn’t that first one that you just read in Romans 12?
Having then gifts differing
according to the grace that is given us, whether prophecy…
That’s the first one! Follow after
charity, and desire ton pneumatikon. Ask God for the grace
gifts, but mostly that ye may prophesy—that above everything else.
Isn’t it a shame that language changes and it doesn’t mean what you read into
it? Prophecy to us has come to mean foretelling the future. “The
fellow prophesied so and so…” Isn’t that shame? The word that is
here in the Bible, and used in that day, had no meaning like that at all about
it, not even an overtone or a connotation of that.
The word is prophamai—the root word—prophamai, “to speak
out.” Then they use the word prophamai to turn into, to use to
make up propheteuo, which means “to magnify God,”
“to speak of divine things.” So the word “prophecy” and “the gift of
prophecy” has nothing to do with foretelling anything. The word prophecy
has to do with witnessing to the Lord Jesus—speaking of the grace of the
blessed Jesus, magnifying the Lord Jesus.
And the apostle says: “When you ask God for the gifts, the grace gifts in your
life, covet the best one; namely, the gift of prophecy, the gift of speaking
for our Lord—boldly, courageously witnessing to the grace of our blessed and
wonderful Savior.
Now you look how he will magnify that—he says:
Follow after charity (and
love), and desire grace gifts, above all, the gift of prophecy.
(Then he describes it here in verse 24 and 25)
If you prophecy, and there
come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he’s convinced of all, he’s
judged of all:
And thus the secrets of his
heart are manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and
report that God is in you of a truth.
(Look again at verse 31)
For all of you may prophesy…
that all may learn, and all may be comforted.
(And then 39) Brethren,
covet to prophesy…
This is the great, marvelous, first gift
of God, a grace gift, that we magnify the Lord openly, boldly, beautifully,
spiritually, graciously. Not in a way that makes people wary in the
dullness of it, but in a marvelous outpouring of the Spirit of God, witnessing
to the grace of our wonderful Lord. “Oh, Master, that we all might have
the grace gift of prophecy!”
I think of the story of
Moses in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Numbers. God said to Moses:
Moses, you can’t pastor all these people. You
have to have people to help you. They have to be those around you to bear
the burden and the responsibility of so great a parish, so many people.
So God said to Moses:
You choose seventy men, elders of the Children of
Israel, and I will place upon them the Spirit that I have placed upon you.
So Moses did according to the Word of
God, and he chose seventy elders from among the people, and they were gathered
there in the tabernacle, in the church, in the house of God—and they
prophesied.
This eleventh chapter of the Book of Numbers: The Spirit of God that was upon
Moses was poured out upon those seventy and they prophesied. They
magnified and glorified God. And while they were there in “church,”
somebody came running up to Moses in the tabernacle and said to him: “Moses, in
the camp down there are Eldad and Medad; and they’re prophesying in the camp.”
And Joshua, the son of Nun—the right-hand (young) man who stood by the side of
Moses—said to Moses: “Moses, let me go down and rebuke them.
They’re not up here in the church among the seventy prophesying and magnifying
the Lord. Let me go down and rebuke them.”
And Moses said to Joshua: “Are you jealous for me? Oh,” said Moses “I
would to God that all of the Lord’s people prophesied. That all of them
prophesied! All of them magnified the Lord! All of them glorified
the Lord!”
That’s the way with us: Lord, grant it, that not just in the pulpit here is
there great magnification and glorification of our Christ; and not just in the
staff around the pastor—God, grant that all of His people prophesy—that they
speak out for Jesus, and they magnify the Lord—that they witness for our
glorious Savior.
And what a wonder it would be, and what a marvel it is, when we witness for our
Lord. That’s the most marvelous thing in the world. And that’s the
greatest thing that can happen in a family, or in a heart, or in a house, or in
a home, or among children.
Think of the power of Christ to change, to save, to convert, to recreate.
We can’t do it. Our only hope is to cast ourselves upon the mercies of
God. Lord, the children we have. Lord, Lord, the problems we
face. Lord, my own soul and my own life. God, magnify Thy name
through me!
And that’s the most marvelous thing that can happen. The man is a new
creation. It’s a new home. It’s a new child. It’s a new
somebody. There’s nothing like somebody being brought to the Lord Jesus;
and the Lord healing, or helping, or curing, or recreating, or forgiving, or
blessing. There’s nothing comparable in human life like that. Oh,
Lord, that’s why the gospel is called the “Good News.” An old Anglo-Saxon
gospel: good news—It’s the best news in the world. There’s no news like
it—none like it.
I remember when Dr. Salk announced to the world that he had found a vaccine
against poliomyelitis—that dreaded disease. And I had seen, since I was a
boy pastor, a teenage pastor, the awesomeness of that terrible disease.
“Now the good news,” he announced to the world, “I have found an immunization
against it.” And, I presume, you were as I was. I went down to the
doctor’s office and he gave me a little cookie, a little sweet cookie.
And on that cookie he had poured out a little of that vaccine. The whole thing tasted good. And I am
immunized forever against that disease. Man, that’s good news!
That’s good news! That’s wonderful news!
The Bible and its message, Jesus and our Savior, and what we can do, is not
dull and humdrum, commonplace. It’s the grandest thing in the
world. If Jesus can somehow be brought into the life of a man, or a
family, or a child, or a people, it’s a new creation. Good news!
I came across this week in my reading one of the funniest things.
[Everybody in the whole world had a candle, or an oil lamp, or a coal oil lamp,
or whatever. I studied by a coal oil lamp. When I went to preach at
the church, all the folks brought lanterns and we hung them up around—fought
the bugs—and between them, and when a bug’d go through those little mantels—you
know, the little things—good night, people would stand up and rush right in the
middle of my sermon over there to their particular lamp and try to keep the
thing going and on and on.]
Well, in my reading this week—I have here a picture of a sign placed in a hotel
room in Cleveland, Ohio. And there’s something new in that room.
There’s something new. And this is what the little announcement says, the
little card says. It says: “This room is equipped with Edison electric
light.”
Then it says, “Do not attempt to light with a match.” Don’t go up there
to that electric light and try to do with a match—“Do not attempt to light with
a match.” That’s the only kind of light anybody’d ever seen in the world
before.
“Don’t attempt to light with
a match.” Simply turn the switch on the wall by the door. It’s a
miracle! And then underneath are these words: “The use of electricity is
in no way harmful to health, nor does it affect the soundness of sleep.”
It’s a wonderful thing—the electric light. Think of that! And the
guy put up in his hotel room, and he put lights in his hotel room. And it
shined, and it worked. Oh, what a wonderful thing to the whole world—the
light that shines.
But, man, that’s no news at
all compared to the light that shines in Jesus our Lord! It’s the best
news in the world! That little child, that little boy and that girl; the
finest thing that can ever happen to that child is that the child come to know
Jesus. That’s the best news that he could ever hear.
Here’s a young man in the strength of his life, or a young woman, and they
stand at the threshold of young manhood and young womanhood, the best news in
the world is that for you in your decision to marry; in your decision in work;
in the decision of the cast, and turn, and color of your life, make it
Christ-like—make it Jesus-like. Open your heart Godward, and heavenward;
and let Him bless you. That’s the best announcement, the best news, in
the world! There’s nothing like it! And that’s the glorious, grace
gift that Paul says I wish all of the people had. I wish all of them
witnessed, and testified, and magnified the Lord.
Dear people, I’m through. Isn’t that another world from what
usually you think when we speak of grace gifts—charismatic gifts? The
most charismatic gift of all is: let us magnify the Lord; let us love and serve
our wonderful Savior; let us bow down before Him; let us call upon His name;
let us invite Him into our hearts and homes. Let Him walk by our sides as
a fellow pilgrim. Let Him open the door for us to heaven. And let’s
look forward to that triumphant day when we’re with Him and one another.
World without end—that’s the Spirit of God in His grace gifts in our hearts.
Now, may we stand together? Wonderful,
wonderful, Savior whose name is Wonderful, oh, Lord that we might have the
words, and the syllables, and sentences to magnify Thee more, to tell of Thy
glorious and wonderful goodness, and greatness, and grace.
And, our Lord, bless Thou the appeal this morning to the hearts of these who
listen. And dear Savior, in Thy goodness and grace, call to Thyself
families, and couples, and souls. May this be a great day of decision and
commitment. And unashamedly and boldly, gladly and triumphantly,
gratefully and believingly, may they come and stand by us and with us.
In this moment that we make appeal, nobody leave. We stand in the
presence of God and pray, just for this moment, and then I’ll give you
opportunity, in a moment, to leave. But right now, if anyone moves, he
moves toward this altar.
“Pastor, my whole family’s coming today. My wife and children, all of us
are coming. We’re on the way.”
Or just a couple, you: “We’ve decided for God, and here we stand.”
