1
The Unity of the Body and the Diversity of Gifts

(12:1–30)

Reflections on the Background of the Argument in 1 Corinthians 12–14

The Bearing of Christianity’s Central Confession on What It Means to Be Spiritual (12:1–3)

Paul’s Use of χάρισμα (charisma)

The Meaning of πνευματικῶν (pneumatikōn)

The Relationship between χάρισμα (charisma) and πνευματικῶν (pneumatikōn)

The Flow of the Argument in 12:1–3

The Significance of the Blasphemy “Jesus Be (or Is) Cursed”

The Bountiful Diversity of the Grace-Gifts (12:4–11)

The Baptism in the Holy Spirit and the Body Metaphor: The Mutual Dependence of Believers on One Another (12:12–26)

Conclusion (12:27–30)

Reflections on the Background of the Argument in 1 Corinthians 12–14

Modern opinion on the background has been cataloged not only in commentaries but also in several recent studies, and need not be repeated here.1 I shall merely summarize my own conclusions. From chapter 7 on, Paul appears to be answering a series of questions put to him in a letter from the Corinthians: “Now for the matters you wrote about,” he begins (7:1). That explains why the topics change so radically: at one point Paul is dealing with relations between the sexes (chap. 7), at another with meat offered to idols (8:1ff.). He can move from women praying and prophesying in the congregation (11:2–16), to the Lord’s Supper (11:17–34), to grace-gifts and love (chaps. 12–14), to the resurrection (chap. 15). Sometimes (as here in 12:1) he opens a new subject with a set expression, Περὶ δέ (peri de, now concerning . . .). But three features in his argument stand out.

First, one of the common denominators in the problems at Corinth was overrealized eschatology.2 It is a commonplace that Paul places the church in dynamic tension between an “already” view of what God has done, and a “not yet” view of what he is still to do. Already the kingdom has dawned and the Messiah is reigning, already the crucial victory has been won, already the final resurrection of the dead has begun in the resurrection of Jesus, already the Holy Spirit has been poured out on the church as the down payment of the promised inheritance and the first fruits of the eschatological harvest of blessings. Nevertheless, the kingdom has not yet come in its consummated fullness, death still exercises formidable powers, sin must be overcome, and opposing powers of darkness war against us with savage ferocity. The new heaven and the new earth have not yet put in an appearance. Maintaining this balance is crucial to the church’s maturity. If we think only in terms of what is still to come (i.e., if we focus on futurist eschatology), we may not only play endless speculative games but we may also depreciate the climactic nature of the incarnation, cross-work, and resurrection of Jesus that have already taken place. We may so pine for the future that we neglect to serve God with enthusiastic gratitude for what he has done in the past. On the other hand, if we think only in terms of what Christ has already accomplished (i.e., if we focus on realized eschatology), we fall into the errors that characterized many of the believers in Corinth. We may feel that as children of the king we have the right to unqualified blessings; we may go so far as to let this stance transform our belief structure until we insist that the crucial experiences of grace we have enjoyed constitute the true “resurrection,” and that no other awaits us. That is why one recent commentator on chapters 12–14 includes a study of chapter 15 as well.3 The Corinthian eschatology was probably reinforced by some brand of Hellenistic dualism that took a dim view of present bodily existence while vastly misunderstanding the nature of spiritual vitality. Perhaps nowhere does the overrealized eschatology of Corinth surface more strongly than in chapter 4: “Already you have all you want!” writes Paul with considerable heat and not a little sarcasm. “Already you have become rich! You have become kings—and that without us! How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you!” (4:8). The apostles, Paul goes on to say, are treated like scum; the Corinthians are above the dirt and delight to think how full of knowledge and wisdom they are. This overrealized eschatology, it can be argued, stands behind many of the pastoral questions Paul faces in Corinth, and is related to the theme of chapters 12–14.

Second, the church in Corinth is a divided church. This is seen not only in the party labels reported at 1:12 (“What I mean is this: One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another ‘I follow Cephas’; still another, ‘I follow Christ.’”) and treated in the first four chapters of the book, but also in a style of argumentation that pervades much of chapters 7–12. It might be called the “yes—but” form of argument. If people in the church take different sides of an issue, Paul’s aim is not only to present his apostolic judgment on the matter but also to reconcile the warring factions. To do this, he tips his head to each faction in turn, and says in effect, “Yes, yes, you have something of the truth on your side, I largely agree with you—but. . . .” To those more ascetically inclined, he writes, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman” (7:1);4 but, he goes on to say, marriage helps reduce promiscuity and in any case it is also a good gift from God (7:2–7). In chapter 8, he acknowledges that Christians know an idol has no real power and constitutes no evil in itself, and therefore food that has been offered to it cannot have undergone some kind of poisonous transformation that makes it dangerous for the Christian (8:1–6). “But,” he goes on to say, “not everyone knows this” (8:7), by which he is referring to other Christians in the Corinthian church; and on this basis he works out some mediating principles.

Not every “but” in 1 Corinthians is traceable to Paul’s concern to unite warring factions; and in one or two instances the apostle sets his stance in diametric opposition to the church (e.g., “In the following directives I have no praise for you” [11:17]). Nevertheless the feature is common enough that we must ask what stands behind it when it occurs. “I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. . . . I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (14:5a, 18–19).5 Few doubt that Paul’s primary interest in these chapters is to curtail somewhat the excesses of certain tongues-speakers; but in these texts he first aligns himself with the tongues-speakers. Are there also hints in these chapters of those who do not speak in tongues?

I think there are, although nowhere do they appear behind an analogous “yes—but” argument. At the end of his discussion, Paul can write, “Do not forbid speaking in tongues” (14:39)—which surely suggests that is what some would have preferred. They cannot be the tongues-speakers themselves, since not only would tongues-speakers have a vested interest the other way, but also nothing Paul has said up to that point demands abolition of this gift.6 Again, in the metaphor of chapter 12, some seem to be threatened by the gifts of others, and are therefore withdrawing in some form (12:14ff.). In the context of these two chapters, the only threatening gift is the gift of tongues.7

These reflections turn out to be important, for some scholars have argued that Paul’s concerns for divisions within the church have come to an end with chapter 4.8 The letter from Corinth that occupies Paul from chapter 7 on must have come from the whole church, they say, not some faction within it; Paul’s responses suggest that the Corinthian church was more divided against Paul than internally. I remain unconvinced. In the first place, this seems to divorce chapters 7–16 from the factionalism we know about from chapters 1–4. Second, a letter may come from an entire church, and with a belligerent tone, while asking questions that betray difference of opinion within the church. After all, if the church were unified on the points that it raises, it is not at all clear why the Corinthians would have questions to raise (except perhaps purely theoretical ones). Third, the central chapter of the three under scrutiny emphasizes love so strongly that it is not hard to believe that the Corinthian church was singularly lacking in this commodity, again doubtless owing to factionalism.

Third, the dominant focus of these chapters is the conduct of the church as it is assembled together. That is equally true, of course, of chapter 11; but the observation becomes especially important when we try to integrate this stance into the flow of the argument at several crucial points (e.g., “in the church,” 14:19; “when you come together,” 14:26).

These reflections set the stage for the exegesis, to which we must now turn.

The Bearing of Christianity’s Central Confession on What It Means to Be Spiritual (12:1–3)

The principal turning points in these verses are five.

Paul’s Use of χάρισμα (charisma)

In the New Testament, the term is found sixteen times in the Pauline writings, and once in Peter (1 Pet. 4:10). Clearly cognate with χάρις (grace), at its simplest it refers to something grace has bestowed, a “grace-gift” if you will. It is not that Paul coined the term: that is most likely going too far, although admittedly pre-Pauline occurrences are textually uncertain.9 But for the apostle who so delights to discuss grace, it is eminently appropriate that he should devote attention to the things of grace, to the concretizations of grace, to grace-gifts.

Of more importance is what the word refers to. Outside 1 Corinthians 12–14, Paul uses it to refer to the “spiritual gift” he wishes to impart to the Romans when he sees them, in the context of a mutual encouragement of faith (Rom. 1:11); to the “gift” that generates life over against the trespass of Adam that generated death (Rom. 5:15–16, where the word is also in parallel with δώρημα [gift]); to the gift of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus, that alone can offset the wages of sin, which is death (Rom. 6:23); to the election of Israel, since God’s “gifts” and call are irrevocable (Rom. 11:29); to the list of “gifts” presented in Romans 12:6–7: prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing to the needs of others, leadership, and showing mercy. That accounts for the uses in Romans. In 2 Corinthians 1:11, χάρισμα (charisma) refers to “the gracious favor” granted to Paul in response to the prayers of many—presumably deliverance from an unspecified “deadly peril.” There are two occurrences in the Pastoral Epistles. In 1 Timothy 4:14 Timothy is told not to neglect the “gift” that was given him through a prophetic message when the elders laid their hands on him; but the gift itself is not further specified. Similarly in 2 Timothy 1:6 he is told to “fan into flame the gift of God” that is in him through the laying on of Paul’s hands. Perhaps we may deduce from these two contexts that the gift was the ministry to which he was called, in danger of being curtailed by timidity and insufficient self-discipline. The usage in 1 Peter 4:10 tightly ties “grace-gift” to “grace”: each believer is to use whatever gift (χάρισμα, charisma) he has received to serve others, thereby administering God’s grace (χάρις, charis) in its various forms.

We have now scanned every instance of the noun in the New Testament, except for those in 1 Corinthians. In the first chapter, Paul assures the Corinthians that they do not lack any “spiritual gift” as they wait for the Lord’s return (although one wonders if the reference to the Lord’s return is a not-too-subtle reminder that even such spiritual wealth is nothing compared with the glory that is to come [1:7]). In one of the most intriguing occurrences, Paul tells his readers that each person has a particular gift from God—one this, and another that—in a context where “this” and “that” refer to marriage and celibacy (1 Cor. 7:7). Presumably, one cannot enjoy both of these χαρίσματα (charismata) simultaneously! The remaining five instances are all found in 1 Corinthians 12. The word stands behind the different kinds of “gifts” in 12:4, and behind the word gifts in 12:31a (rendered in the NIV, “But eagerly desire the greater gifts”). Finally, it is found three times in the plural expression gifts of healing (12:9, 28, 30). The word χάρισμα (charisma) does not stand behind what the New International Version calls “spiritual gifts” in 12:1, 14:1, and elsewhere.

So much for the raw data. What shall we make of them? Dealing first with the superficial, it is very clear that the term is not a technical one for Paul that refers only to a select set of supranormal gifts like healing and tongues. Not only can it embrace gifts like encouraging and generous giving, but it can be used repeatedly for the gift of salvation itself—not to mention the gift of celibacy and the gift of marriage. In that sense, therefore, every Christian is a charismatic. Moreover, if the term can extend to celibacy and marriage, every person, Christian or not, is a charismatic; that is, every person has received gracious gifts from God. It is for this reason that I do not like to talk about the “charismatic movement” unless I am given space to define terms: it seems like a terrible reduction of the manifold grace of God. Having clarified what Paul’s range of referents is under this term, however, I shall bow to popular coinage and speak of the “charismatic movement.”

But if χάρισμα (charisma) should not be turned into a technical term by the charismatic movement, neither should it receive such treatment from other voices in the field. Grau, Käsemann, and Dunn have made attempts;10 but these attempts cannot be judged successful.11 It is reductionistic to think the word refers only to the fundamental gift of salvation, or only to specific acts or events immediately imparted by the Spirit but having no underlay in the individual’s “natural” gifts. On the one hand, the χάρισμα (charisma) of Romans 6:23 (“the gift of God is eternal life”) must not be made to stand as the source of all the other χαρίσματα (charismata); for although the referent of the word in Romans 6:23 (i.e., eternal life) may be the source of all the other χαρίσματα (charismata), nevertheless “it is a blunder in the realm of lexical semantics to confuse the referent of a predicate (in a referring expression) with its sense, and it leads to forced interpretation of Romans 1:11; 1 Corinthians 7:7; 2 Corinthians 1:11; Romans 5:15 and 11:29.”12 On the other hand, it is not clear that the word acquires a semitechnical force in 1 Corinthians 12–14, meaning concrete events or actions, specific events or occasions of leadership, prophecy, teaching, and the like. Dunn uses this distinction to apply the term charismatic only to specific acts or events, refusing to apply it to gifts of grace that might be latent or temporarily hidden.13 The term simply cannot have that force outside 1 Corinthians 12–14; and even here, as Hemphill remarks, if Paul thought of the χαρίσματα (charismata) primarily as Spirit-given events or acts, he could have curtailed much of the Corinthians’ boasting by pointing out that no one can in fact possess or have such gifts. In fact he freely speaks of people having certain gifts, and gives instructions on the use of the gift one has.14

What is clear, then, is that the particular “spiritual gifts” Paul wishes to discuss in these chapters are gifts of God’s grace. To say more than that,15 we must extend the discussion first to another word for spiritual gift, and then to the relationship between these two words.

The Meaning of πνευματικῶν (pneumatikōn)

When Paul opens the chapter with the words now about spiritual gifts, brothers (12:1), he is setting the agenda of the ensuing three chapters. Clearly, then, the word rendered “spiritual gifts” is important; but in fact it hides a difficult ambiguity. In Pauline usage it can be taken as masculine and refer to “spiritual people” (see 2:15; 3:1; 14:37), or as neuter and refer to “spiritual things” (i.e., “spiritual gifts”; see 9:11; 14:1; 15:46). Which is the meaning here? Both interpretations have been strongly defended; and the fact that these chapters close with the personal use (14:37) might be taken as a point in favor of the masculine. In that case Paul is dealing less with the nature of spiritual gifts than with the nature of spiritual people, although obviously the two are in some way related. There would also be an immediate effect on the way the first three verses (12:1–3) are interpreted. Nevertheless, the word is probably to be taken as a neuter. After all, if it occurs in 14:37 as a reference to spiritual people, it also occurs in 14:1 as a reference to spiritual gifts. More important, the word is conceptually parallel in certain respects to χαρίσματα (charismata), and the latter never refers to persons.

The crucial point to recognize is that in 12:1 Paul is bringing up a point in the Corinthians’ letter. What question were they posing to him to generate so ambiguous a response? For reasons that will become clear in a moment, I suggest that at least one of the questions being put to him ran something like this: “Is it really true that spiritual manifestations (πνευματικά, pneumatika) constitute unfailing evidence of spiritual people (πνευματικοί, pneumatikoi)?” This question, I shall suggest, had opposing barbs. As phrased by the Corinthian “pneumatics” it was shaped like this: “Is it not true that . . . ?” As shaped by the “non-pneumatics” it sounded more like this: “Surely it isn’t true that . . . ?” Paul responds with a reference to their discussion of “the question of spirituals” (περὶ δè τῶν πνευματικῶν, peri de tōn pneumatikōn), knowing that his readers will recognize thereby the subject he is about to broach.

The Relationship between χάρισμα (charisma) and πνευματικόν (pneumatikon)

It is widely recognized that the introductory formula of 12:1 means that Paul is introducing the subject in the terms preferred by his Corinthian readers (πνευματικόν, pneumatikon),16 and that at least through chapter 12 he then proceeds to use the term he himself prefers (χάρισμα, charisma). But what does he intend to achieve by this change?

An easy guess, and almost certainly right in itself, is that Paul wants to remind his readers that whatever might truly be considered “spiritual” is better thought of as a gracious gift from God. The quest for an individualizing and self-centered form of “spirituality” was in danger of denying the source of all true spiritual gifts, the unbounded grace of God. This does not mean Paul depreciates the term πνευματικόν (pneumatikon); for elsewhere in his epistle, with only one possible exception (14:37, and in my judgment that possibility is not a real exception), Paul always uses the word with positive overtones of spiritual maturity. The apostle who so persistently insists that God’s πνεῦμα (pneuma) is the down payment of the age to come is in no position to despise any πνευματικόν (pneumatikon). Still, in this context the switch to χάρισμα (charisma) serves to lay emphasis on grace. But are there sharper lines to be drawn between these two words?

One way of proceeding has become especially popular. Some have argued that πνευματικόν (pneumatikon) should be restricted to prophecy or to prophecy and tongues.17 This interpretation is usually tied in with an attempt to make prophecy at Corinth ecstatic; and Paul’s aim in effect is to replace the emphasis on the ecstatic by the broader category of gracious gift that results in service. But outside these three chapters the word certainly does not have that meaning. If then someone argues that what is important here is what the Corinthians mean by the word, not Paul, since he is quoting their correspondence, we still face two difficulties: (1) If Paul knows that the Corinthians use the word in a special sense, it is surprising to find him using it three times earlier in this epistle in his normal way (2:15; 3:1; 9:11), and then switching here without warning to their meaning. (2) A specialized meaning in 12:1 such as “concerning persons whom you designate ‘spiritually gifted’” makes a poor heading to a chapter where Paul is repeatedly concerned to show that all Christians are spiritually gifted, unless he takes explicit pains to point out their faulty category and not just their distorted theology.18

These first three points have not drawn us into the flow of the passage; but they had to be discussed, for the results come back to bless us (or haunt us) in what ensues. May main point so far is that a number of studies have overspecified what can be learned from a few individual words.

The Flow of the Argument in 12:1–3

The statement “brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant” (12:1), or its near equivalent, is a Pauline expression (cf. 10:1; Rom. 1:13; 11:25; 2 Cor. 1:8; 1 Thess. 4:13) by which the apostle assures his readers that what he is passing on is part of the heritage of central Christian truth; and sometimes it introduces content that cannot be more than a reminder of material previously taught. In the dominant interpretation of 12:1–3, it is presupposed that the truth of which the apostle does not wish the Corinthians to remain ignorant is found in verses 2 and 3. This has the effect of tying those two verses tightly together, reinforced by the strong “therefore” (διό) at the beginning of verse 3; that is, because you were led away to serve dumb idols when you were pagans (v. 2), therefore (v. 3) I am telling you that no one who speaks by the Spirit of God can say “Jesus is anathema,” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. By forging so tight a link between verses 2 and 3, this interpretation has two important consequences. First, it entices the interpreter to look for clues in verse 2 that suggest the Corinthians had been heavily involved in ecstatic frenzies connected with their pagan worship before they became Christians; and this pagan worship offered, perhaps, instances in which Jesus might well have been cursed. Second, the pagan ecstatic frenzy presupposed under this interpretation is in certain respects compared with the work of the Spirit (v. 3); and the conclusion is drawn that the proper test or criterion for appropriate inspiration is the acknowledgment of Christ as Lord. So, for example, Professor Bruce:

In classical literature, Apollo was particularly renowned as the source of ecstatic utterances, as on the lips of Cassander of Troy, the priestess of Delphi or the Sibyl of Cumae (whose frenzy as she prophesied under the god’s control is vividly described by Virgil); at a humbler level the fortune-telling slave girl of Acts 16:16 was dominated by the same kind of ‘pythonic’ spirit. Paul does not suggest that any prophecy or glossolalia at Corinth proceeded from such a source; he simply reminds his readers that there are ‘inspired’ utterances [not from] the Spirit of God.19

But this line of reasoning is not very compelling. First, there is nothing in verse 2 itself that testifies to a background in pagan ecstasy. For instance, the verbs themselves (NIV “influenced and led astray”), despite many statements to the contrary, do not conjure up visions of demonic force.20 And second, quite apart from such questions as whether the Pythia used unintelligible language truly parallel to the Corinthian Christians’ glossolalia,21 it seems very difficult to imagine a Paul who could forbid any fellowship with demons (10:21) now drawing an ambiguous comparison between pagan “inspiration” and Christian “inspiration” with the sole difference being the resulting confession. True, Paul knows that not everything from the spirit world is the Holy Spirit; but the antitheses he draws in this arena are normally sharp.

In fact, de Broglie and Mehat have pointed to a better way to understand the flow.22 It is better, they argue, to take verse 2 with verse 1, as an expansion on the theme of the Corinthians’ ignorance. After all, elsewhere when Paul uses the formula “I do not want you to be ignorant,” he can insert some kind of explanatory or parenthetical aside before he turns to the content he wishes to convey (cf. 1 Cor. 8:1–4; 15:1–4; 1 Thess. 4:13–15; and then he always introduces the content with a ὃτι (hoti). But no ὃτι (hoti) is found at the beginning of verse 2. For that we turn to verse 3, where Paul uses γνωρίζω (gnōrizō, lit., I make known) in a resumptive fashion. The connective διό (dio; NIV’s “therefore”) connects verse 3 not with verse 2 but with verses 1 and 2. In short, the flow runs like this: I do not want you to be ignorant of certain central truths (v. 1). You know of course that when you were pagans your ignorance on such matters was profound (v. 2). Now (since I do not want you to be ignorant in these matters, vv. 1–2) I am making them known to you (v. 3).

This means we no longer have to interpret verse 3 in the light of verse 2, and vice versa. That link broken, we shall be less inclined to detect pagan ecstasy behind the words of verse 2; and we are freer to explore how verse 3 ties in with the rest of the chapter, and especially with verses 4ff. These latter verses insist on the diversity of the gifts, but the oneness of the source. This suggests that Paul’s correspondents were at least partly made up of charismatics (in the modern sense of the term) who wanted to elevate their gifts to the place where they could give exclusive authentication for spiritual life and who wanted Paul to approve this judgment; and partly they were made up of noncharismatics (again in the modern sense) who were profoundly skeptical of the claims of the charismatics, and wanted Paul to correct them. Their skepticism, it may be, arose from their own pagan backgrounds (for nothing that I have said denies that the majority of Corinthian believers emerged from paganism, but only that pagan ecstasy is in view in 12:2), just as the pagan backgrounds of certain people made them uneasy about eating food that had been offered to idols (see 1 Cor. 8). Mehat prefers the latter group;23 I see no reason why both groups could not have been among Paul’s correspondents in Corinth, reflecting different factions in the church. To both parties, Paul offers a telling rebuttal: your horizons are too narrow, he says, for participation in the things of the Holy Spirit is attested by all who truly confess Jesus as Lord. Both parties must expand their horizons: the charismatics should not feel they have some exclusive claim on the Spirit, and the noncharismatics should not be writing them off.

This interpretation, I suggest, makes much better sense than those which see in “Jesus is Lord” a sufficient criterion for distinguishing the true from the false in all prophetic utterances. After all, taken as such a criterion it is disturbingly broad and undiscriminating: for instance, it is quite helpless in the face of the false spirits confronting John (1 John 4:1–6). There the problem lay with those who denied Jesus was the Christ. But if 1 Corinthians 12:3 offers a criterion not to establish true and false ecstatic utterance but to establish whether or not any particular spiritual manifestation may be used to authenticate the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, then Paul’s answer is in line with the entire New Testament. To be able to confess that the Jesus of the incarnation, cross, and resurrection is truly the Lord, especially in the face of a society that has lords aplenty, already attests the powerful, transforming work of the Holy Spirit. To put the matter another way, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Rom. 8:9). Both to those who want to exalt spiritual manifestations as the infallible criterion of the Holy Spirit’s powerful presence, and to those who want to question the genuineness of the spirituality attested by such manifestations, Paul provides a profoundly christological focus. As Schweizer puts it (perhaps too simply): “The Holy Spirit makes us receptive to Jesus.”24 In short, the purpose of 12:1–3 is not to provide a confessional test to enable Christians to distinguish true from false spirits, but to provide a sufficient test to establish who has the Holy Spirit at all.

Moreover, this interpretation offers a smooth transition to 12:4–6; for here Paul’s point has nothing to do with the way true and false spiritual manifestations may be detected, but with the diversity of spiritual manifestations from the Triune God. But before turning our attention there, I must say something about another point.

The Significance of the Blasphemy “Jesus Be [or Is]25 Cursed”

What shall we make of this foul curse? As long as verses 2–3 are understood to provide a criterion to distinguish true spiritual manifestations from false manifestations in the church, we are forced to scramble around to find some situation in which this might actually be said in a Corinthian assembly, a situation where Paul’s criterion would have some force.

Many suggestions have been put forward, none of them convincing. The more important ones are the following.

It has been argued that some Christians had been dragged before a court and forced to deny Jesus (see Pliny, Epistles 10.96) and then, once released, had returned to the Christian congregation and attempted to justify their actions by appealing to the Spirit’s leading. Paul’s words then serve to remove their defense. But this reconstruction not only “presupposes the circumstances of a later date”;26 it also provides a test that must be judged needless. Would any first-century church have entertained much doubt as to whether the Holy Spirit had prompted the blasphemy in such cases?

Many suggest that Paul is thinking of some specific pagan worship setting. Appeal is often made, among others, to Origen’s statement (Celsus 6.28) that initiates into the Ophite sect were required to say that Jesus is anathema.27 But the parallels are not convincing; and even the Ophites may not have cursed Jesus in so many words, but cursed him de facto by equating him with the serpent.28 Moreover, Origen is a late witness for sixth-decade Corinth; and in any case Paul is dealing with Christian worship, not pagan utterances.

Many envisage some sort of background in the Jewish synagogue. People in that environment would after all remember that Jesus had died on a cross, a cursed man; and believing that God’s Spirit was with them, they might well have uttered “Jesus is anathema!” while claiming to be led by the Spirit.29 Again, however, this fails to recognize that Paul is dealing with a Christian context; and there is too little emphasis in the surrounding context on the Judaizing controversy to believe that he is taking a general swipe at the local synagogue as a kind of foil to the proper confession, “Jesus is Lord.” In any case, the expression ἀνάθεμα (anathema) makes the association with the synagogue less likely than would have been the case if other expressions had been used.30 Some have tried to sidestep one or more of these difficulties by ingenious speculation. Derrett, for example, proposes that a synagogue ruler may have actually tutored a would-be Jewish Christian in this curse, in order to help him save his membership in the synagogue.31 The ingenuity of this proposal is not helped by the fact that such a breach would be so outrageous the Corinthians would surely not have needed Paul to set up an appropriate test. More believably, Bassler suggests this is an oblique self-description of the apostle. He is making reference to his own pre-Christian days as a foil for the basic Christian confession.32 Even so, it is surprising that a self-reference can be so obscure that it has taken almost twenty centuries to find it. Was it not similarly opaque to the Corinthians? Van Unnik suggests there were “Christians” who believed that Jesus died on the cross as a curse to bear our sin, but did not believe he rose from the dead and therefore could not confess him as Lord.33 But I know of no evidence for such a hybrid; it is not clear how such people might have been accepted as Christians in the first place; and in any case ἀνάθεμα (anathema) is never used in a sin-bearing context.34

Still others detect a docetic Gnosticism in the background.35 Adopting a radical dualism that elevates spirit and associates flesh with evil, they might well (it is argued) prove their commitment to Gnostic insight by loudly proclaiming that Jesus the man is cursed. Paul’s desire is to exclude such people from the church. This proposal might make sense of verse 3 in isolation. Indeed, much of the best criticism of this position has come from those who see verses 2 and 3 tightly linked together36—a position I have already rejected. But the position is weak even if verse 2 is more tightly tied to verse 1 than to verse 3; for quite apart from the difficult question regarding the date of full-blown Gnosticism’s rise, it remains unclear why Paul should introduce a test for Gnostics in the context of these chapters.

Albright and Mann find the question so difficult that they propose to emend the text in favor of an Aramaic construction they detect behind Didache. Textual emendations should be the court of last appeal; and as we shall see, there is an easier solution.37

Several commentators suggest that Paul is referring to Christian ecstatics who are resisting a Spirit-given trance or ecstasy as it comes on them by resorting to blasphemous utterances.38 Parallels are drawn to the Sibyl who foamed as she resisted being possessed, or to Cassander who cursed Apollo in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon. But I know of no parallel in which a Chrisitan is so committed to resisting the Spirit’s power as to utter christological blasphemies in an attempt to ward the Spirit off—assuming in any case the Holy Spirit manifested himself to the Corinthian believers by taking them up into some sort of ecstatic trance, even though the evidence suggesting that ecstatic trances constituted a major part of the Corinthians’ spiritual experience is extremely thin on the ground.

And finally, not a few commentators propose that the curse part of verse 3 is a Pauline creation, cut out of whole cloth to stand in savage juxtaposition to the true Christian confession, a kind of shock treatment to tell the Corinthians to recognize that not all that is spiritual is divine.39 But if the warning is entirely hypothetical (i.e., without any instance in the life of the Corinthian church where someone was actually crying out, “Jesus is cursed!”), it is hard to see why the Corinthians should not dismiss this part of the verse as a bit of overblown rhetoric.

There are other attempts at solutions, of course;40 but most of them depend heavily on the presupposition that Paul is attempting to provide a quick if rough criterion to enable his hearers to distinguish between true and false “spiritual gifts.” If we free ourselves from that presupposition and perceive that Paul’s interest lies rather in establishing who truly has the Holy Spirit, then the pressure to identify a precise and believable background is reduced. If Paul is not wielding the curse language of verse 3a as a test for detecting false prophets in the church, then the objections raised against several of the backgrounds just listed disappear. It is no longer necessary to hold that “Jesus is cursed” was actually ever uttered in a Corinthian church meeting: Paul’s point is to draw a sharp contrast between what those who have the Holy Spirit (i.e., Christians) say about Jesus, and what those who do not have the Holy Spirit say about Jesus. The latter group might include Jews and Gentiles, whether within cultic contexts or not. Paul’s concern is quite simply to establish an essentially christological focus to the question of who is spiritual, who has the Holy Spirit.

The Bountiful Diversity of the Grace-Gifts (12:4–11)

As in Ephesians 4:1–16, so here: Paul first sets a foundation in unity, in the one confession prompted by the Holy Spirit, and then introduces the diversity.41 The connecting δέ (de) is probably adversative: I want you to know that all who truly confess Jesus as Lord do so by the Holy Spirit, and thus attest his presence in their lives; but that does not mean there are no distinctions to be made among them. Paul’s concern now is not so much with unity as with diversity.42 The Triune God loves diversity—so much so, as someone has remarked, that when he sends a snowstorm he makes each flake different. We manufacture ice cubes. Doubtless the church is in some sense like a mighty army, but that does not mean we should think of ourselves as undifferentiated khaki. We should be more like an orchestra: each part making its own unique contribution to the symphonic harmony. Dictators of the right and the left seek to establish their brand of harmony by forcefully imposing monotonous sameness, by seeking to limit differentiation. God establishes his brand of harmony by a lavish grant of highly diverse gifts, each contributing to the body as a whole.

The word rendered “different kinds” in the New International Version (διαίρεσις, diairesis), judging from usage in the Septuagint (as the word does not occur in the New Testament outside this chapter), might mean either “varieties” (i.e., “different kinds”) or “distributions.” Because the cognate verb (διαιροῦν, diairoun) in verse 11 unambiguously bears the latter sense, probably the noun should here be taken in the same way: there are distributions of gifts. Of course, that implies variety; but it does more. As in Ephesians 4:7ff., we are reminded that God himself is the one who apportions grace; the diversity of gifts is grounded in his distribution of gifts.

The parallelism of verses 4–6 is remarkable. Paul tells us that there are different distributions:

of gifts (χαρίσματα, charismata), but the same Spirit;

of service (διακονίαι, diakoniai), but the same Lord;

of working (ἐνεργήματα, energēmata), but the same God.

There are some, of course, who cannot detect here or elsewhere in the New Testament any Trinitarian thought;43 but this appears to me to owe more to a doctrinaire reconstruction of early historical theology than to exegesis. I am not even sure that it is entirely adequate to say that the Trinitarian consciousness in these verses is “the more impressive because it seems to be artless and unconscious.”44 Despite some prestigious opinion to the contrary, it appears exegetically certain that New Testament writers can on occasion self-consciously mark out the Holy Spirit as “person.” For instance, the understanding of the New Testament writers seems to be a necessary presupposition when, for instance, with only one exception “Holy Spirit” is anarthrous in passages that stress power, and articular in contexts where “the Holy Spirit” is treated as a personality.45

Be that as it may, two errors are to be avoided in attempting to understand the relationship between, on the one hand, gifts, service, and working, and, on the other, Spirit, Lord, and God. First, it would be wrong to think that the connections are exclusive: as if the Spirit gives only distributions of gifts, the Lord Jesus gives only distributions of service, and so forth; for (1) verses 4–6 do not so much suggest that the Spirit gives gifts, the Lord gives forms of service, and God gives “workings,” as that diversity of distributions of these “gifts,” for want of a more generic term, goes hand in glove with one Spirit, one Lord, one God; and (2) in the ensuing verses in this chapter, everything is ascribed to the Spirit (though still not so much as the giver of the gifts as the one who distributes them and “energizes” them [12:11]).46 We are inevitably reminded of the Farewell Discourse (John 14–16), where Jesus promises that the coming “Paraclete,” the Holy Spirit, will make his abode in Christ’s disciples (14:17), and then goes on to say that both he himself and the Father will make their home in the believer (14:23), apparently through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Yet it would be equally wrong to think that the parallelism of 1 Corinthians 12:4–6 is nothing but arbitrary rhetoric.47 Because the word χαρίσματα (charismata, gifts), as we have seen, is largely parallel to πνευματικά (peumatika), it is not surprising that “gifts” should be associated with the πνεῦμα (pneuma, Spirit). “Service” goes well with “Lord”; and “workings” nicely fits “God,” as the last clause of verse 6 shows: this God is the one who “works” (ὁ ἐνεργῶν, ho energōn) all things48 in all people.

What is clear from this sequence is that Paul is not concerned to define “spiritual gift” too narrowly. We have already noted the considerable range of χαρίσματα (charismata). The two parallel terms are if anything even broader. The “service” of verse 5 (διακονία, diakonia) is a general term used in secular Greek for all kinds of work—waiting on tables, the civil service, a collection for the poor (2 Cor. 8:4–5). Precisely because of its range, Josephus can occasionally use it of priestly service, even though there is no clerical notion intrinsic to the use of the term. In this context, the New Testament diaconate is not in view.49 The point is that even everyday acts of service must be included under this rubric. Similarly, ἐνέργημα (energēma, working) simply hints at the ἐνἑργεια (energeia, energy or power) of God that is operating. “Workings” are merely “ways in which the divine power is applied”;50 “it is almost co-extensive with χαρίσματα [charismata], but it gives prominence to the idea of power rather than that of endowment.”51

The parallelism does not of course make the words strictly synonymous, any more than Spirit, Lord, and God are strictly synonymous; but because none of the three terms can be associated with only certain spiritual gifts and not with others, it is clear that Paul uses the three terms to describe the full range of what we might call spiritual-gift phenomena. One conclusion is unavoidable: Paul tends to flatten distinctions between “charismatic” gifts and “noncharismatic” gifts in the modern sense of those terms.

Verse 7 is transitional. It glances back to the preceding verses by embracing gifts, service, and working alike under the one expression the manifestation of the Spirit. All of these manifest the Spirit; they show the Spirit (if the genitive is objective).52 But the verse makes two new points.

First, each believer is given some manifestation of the Spirit; and at least in this text, “there is no warrant for saying that one gift manifests his presence more than another,”53 even if some manifestations are more spectacular or more useful than others. To take the “each one” as a reference to each specially endowed charismatic, as some do,54 not only misunderstands the flow of the argument so far, in which Paul’s principal aim has been to display the full breadth of the Christian, Holy-Spirit-endued communion, but also flies in the face of verses 12–30.

Second, these gifts are not for personal aggrandizement, but “for the common good.” The peculiar expression that is used55 might be literally rendered “with a view to profiting,” not in itself making it clear whether the profit is for the individual or the group. The broader context makes it clear that the latter is in view (see especially chap. 14). Even so, this clearly stated purpose of “spiritual gifts” (if I may continue to use that term for the full range of the manifestations of the Spirit that Paul envisages) must not be brought to bear on the broader discussion in a heavy-handed way. As we shall see, some wish to rule out the legitimacy of any private use of tongues on the basis of this and similar texts: What possible benefit for the entire community is there, they ask, in such private tongues-speaking? Clearly there is no direct benefit: no one but God is hearing what is being said. But Paul was granted extraordinary visions and revelations that were designed only for his immediate benefit (2 Cor. 12:1–10); yet surely the church received indirect profit insofar as those visions and revelations, not to mention the ensuing thorn in his flesh, better equipped him for proclamation and ministry. In the same way, it is hard to see how verse 7 of this chapter renders illegitimate a private use of tongues if the result is a better person, a more spiritually minded Christian: the church may thereby receive indirect benefit. The verse rules out using any χάρισμα (charisma) for personal aggrandizement or merely for self-satisfaction; it does not rule out all benefit for the individual (just as marriage, one of the χαρίσματα [charismata] according to 1 Cor. 7:7, may benefit the individual), providing that the resulting matrix is for the common good. The context demands no more.

These two points from verse 7 are then further expanded in verses 8–11 and verses 12–30 respectively.

The list of spiritual gifts in verses 8–11 is worth setting out in parallel with other similar New Testament lists (see table 1). One might also add the list of rhetorical questions in 1 Corinthians 12:29–30, but I shall omit it here. Comparison of these lists makes several things obvious.

First, no list, including the one immediately before us in 1 Corinthians 12:8–11, is meant to be exhaustive. This should already have been expected from Paul’s discussion in verses 4–6, which suggests that not even the addition of all twenty or twenty-one56 entries from the five lists should be taken as exhaustive.

Second, the order of the gifts varies considerably. It cannot be assumed that the entries are in order of importance when prophecy is sixth in the first list, second in the second list, and first in the third.

Table 1. New Testament Lists of Spiritual Gifts

1 Cor. 12:8–11	1 Cor. 12:28	Rom. 12:6–8	Eph. 4:11	1 Pet. 4:11
word of wisdom	apostles	prophecy	apostles	speaking
word of knowledge	prophets	service	prophets	service
faith	teachers	teaching	evangelists
gifts of healings	workers of miracles	exhortation	pastors
working of miracles		giving	teachers
prophecy	helps	leadership
distinguishing of spirits	administration	showing of mercy
kinds of tongues	kinds of tongues
interpretation of tongues

The second list enumerates the first three entries (first, second, third) and uses personal categories for them (apostles, prophets, teachers); but thereafter the list is not enumerated, and changes from persons to functional ministries. In this second part of the list, Paul appears to select two from the first list (but inverts their order!), adds two more not from the first list, and ends up with tongues (from the first list), while omitting the interpretation of tongues.57 From this it has been strenuously argued that there is no warrant in these chapters to think of tongues as the least of the χαρίσματα (charismata).58 I agree that the point has been overplayed by some noncharismatics; but perhaps it is not entirely without force. In the first two lists, as well as in the list of rhetorical questions in verses 29–30, the gift of tongues (and its correlative, the gift of interpretation of tongues, where it is present) is always last. When I compare the New Testament lists of the apostles, I cannot help but notice that although there is some reordering of the entries from list to list, Judas Iscariot is always last (except of course in Acts 1:13, where he is simply omitted).59 In light of the sustained downplaying of tongues in chapter 14, the least that can be said is that even if Paul does not consider tongues to be the least of the spiritual gifts on some absolute scale, it is highly likely he makes it the last entry in each list in 1 Corinthians because his readers were far too prone to exalt this one gift.

Third, the lists as a whole contain an impressive mixture of what some might label “natural” and “supernatural” endowments, or “spectacular” and “more ordinary” gifts. This is in line with what we have gleaned from Paul’s argument in 12:1–7. The intriguing thing is that Paul himself makes no such distinctions: it is the same God who works all things in all people. Paul’s overarching doctrine of divine sovereignty is precisely what can prompt him to ask the Corinthians elsewhere: “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Cor. 4:7). This suggests in turn that Paul would not have been uncomfortable with spiritual gifts made up of some mix of so-called natural talent—what he would consider still to be God’s gift—and of specific, Spirit-energized endowment.

Turning to the list in 12:8–11, three preliminary things must be said.

Attempts at classifying the entries in the list are numerous.60 If any such classification is warranted by features in the text itself, it is the one that notes the variation in the Greek terms for “another.” Sometimes Paul maintains a distinction between these two terms ἄλλος (allos) and ἕτερος (heteros)—for example, in Galatians 1:6–7—and sometimes he does not. If the distinction is maintained here, some argue, an intelligible result is achieved: when ἕτερος (heteros) appears, a new division in the list in intended.61 This issues in the following division: the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge lie in the intellectual arena; faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, and distinguishing of spirits are grouped separately, perhaps linked with special faith, the lead item in this division; and tongues and the interpretation of tongues, in a category by itself. The division is possible; but there is enough overlap between the first two categories to make the theory less than convincing. Does not prophecy, in the second division, also produce intellectual results (first division)? Is faith more characteristic of distinguishing spirits (second division) than of uttering a word of wisdom (first division)? On balance, it is best to treat the gifts one by one.

For similar reasons, it is not clear to me that Paul is making profound points when he changes the prepositions he uses with “Spirit”; διά (dia), strictly “through the Spirit” (v. 8a); κατά (kata), strictly “according to the Spirit” (v. 8b); ἐν (en), strictly “in the Spirit” and related expression (v. 9, bis). He may have felt it was more appropriate to use one preposition or another with particular gifts; but there is no evidence that he intended thereby to designate distinct operations of the Spirit.

I must offer some brief remarks on the particular χαρίσματα (charismata) discussed in this chapter. For the time being, I shall say nothing about prophecy, tongues, or the interpretation of tongues, or, from the second list, apostles and teachers, relegating this discussion to the third chapter.

The message of wisdom and the message of knowledge. The emphasis is not exactly on wisdom but on the messages (the λόγος, logos, word, as in 1:18) that issue from wisdom and knowledge. It is not entirely clear how or even whether these two gifts differ from one another. Old Testament usage might have dictated that the message of wisdom was more practical, telling believers how to live their lives under the fear of God, while the message of knowledge was more theoretical or doctrinal. The problem with such a breakdown is that usage of “wisdom” and “knowledge” in this epistle recognizes no such dichotomy. In light of 2:6ff., “wisdom” can be essentially doctrinal, and the word of wisdom can be the fundamental message of Christianity; in light of 8:10–11, knowledge can be immensely practical. Perhaps a distinction was clearer to the first readers than it is to us; but even so, it is unlikely to have been more than a distinction in shading, in emphasis.

Probably those who were endowed with these gifts enjoyed a special experience of the Spirit by which a message came to them that they transmitted to the congregation; but it is not clear that the content of such messages was invariably what could not have been known any other way. Montague suggests that a message of knowledge was expected when Jesus was blindfolded and beaten, the soldiers shouting “Prophesy! Who hit you?”62 Perhaps, but knowledge is so regularly related by Paul to knowing God and his will that the example seems a bit strained. And interestingly, the soldiers apparently would have labeled the result a “prophecy”—more evidence of overlapping categories.

Faith. Neither here nor in 13:2 is this saving faith; for saving faith all Christians must possess. This rather is faith to perform some extraordinary work,63 the kind of faith, in Jesus’s terms, that can move mountains (whether Paul is dependent on Jesus’s teaching or not).64 Saving faith is ultimately grounded in God’s gracious and public self-disclosure in Christ Jesus and in the Scriptures; even though the work of the Holy Spirit is required for such faith, faith’s object lies in revelatory events and words that are in the public arena. This special faith, however, enables a believer to trust God to bring about certain things for which he or she cannot claim some divine promise recorded in Scripture, or some state of affairs grounded in the very structure of the gospel. One thinks, for instance, of George Müller of Bristol.65 The suggestion of Conzelmann, that this is not faith at all “but apparently the ability to work miracles,”66 is worse than mere pedantry: it reflects a view of faith without certain object, a view of faith unknown to Paul, however appealing to contemporary existentialism.

Gifts of [lit.] healings. It is immensely reductionistic to say that the gift of healing “consisted of a natural gift of sympathy or empathy combined with a capacity of knowing the right thing to do in any individual situation and with any individual patient. This intuitive knowledge was sharpened and made more sensitive by the operation of the Holy Spirit.”67 There can be little doubt that Paul understands these healings to be as miraculous as those of the Lord Jesus himself.

The theological and eschatological significance of such miracles I shall briefly explore in the last chapter. For now it is sufficient to note these remarkable plurals: gifts of healings in all three occurrences in this chapter (cf. vv. 28, 29). This strongly suggests that there were different gifts of healings: not everyone was getting healed by one person, and perhaps certain persons with one of these gifts of healing could by the Lord’s grace heal certain diseases or heal a variety of diseases but only at certain times. Perhaps, then, one of the things that our own generation needs to avoid is the institutionalizing of gifts. If a Christian has been granted the χάρισμα (charisma) to heal one particular individual of one particular disease at one time, that Christian should not presume to think that the gift of healing has been bestowed on him or her, prompting the founding of “a healing ministry.” But I shall say a little more about healing, and especially about the so-called third-wave movement, the “signs-and-wonders” movement, in the last chapter.

Miraculous powers. Literally “workings of powers”: the first word was introduced in verse 6. The plurals are again noteworthy, and probably signal the same sort of diversity as in the previous gift. Presumably all healings are demonstrations of miraculous powers, but not all miraculous powers are healings: they may include exorcisms, nature miracles, and other displays of divine energy. The close relationship among the gifts of faith, healings, and miracles again suggests that the entries on the list are not quantum packages, each discrete from the others. Rather, there is considerable overlap.

The ability to distinguish between spirits. The Greek διακρίσεις πνευμάτων (diakriseis pneumatōn) is understood by Dautzenberg to refer to the gift of “interpreting the revelations of the Spirit” (i.e., the prophecies themselves);68 but he has been decisively refuted by Grudem.69 Spectacular displays often attest the power of the spirit world; they do not in themselves attest the power of the Holy Spirit. Moses discovered that Egyptian sorcerers could duplicate many of the miracles God enabled him to do; and Jesus warned that there would arise people who would perform miracles and cast out demons in his name even though they would never be recognized by Christ as his own (see especially Matt. 7:21–23). There is ever a need to distinguish demonic forces from the Holy Spirit. This gift is apparently designed to meet that need. The insight needed may be granted by some special enduement; or, if 1 John 4:1–6 is anything to go by, the outworking of this gift may on occasion be the by-product of profound doctrinal discernment.

Gifts of support and gifts of direction.70 These are the two new gifts introduced into the second part of the second list (12:28), rendered in the New International Version “those able to help others” and “those with gifts of administration” respectively.71 The first word (ἀντιλήμψεις, antilēmpseis) is used only here in the New Testament; but judging from its widely distributed use elsewhere, it is a very general term for all kinds of assistance. The cognate verb is found at Luke 1:54; Acts 20:35; 1 Timothy 6:2. The second word (κυβερνήσεις, kybernēseis) is primarily used for the piloting or steering of a ship: its use is metaphorical here. Some have suggested that these two gifts represent the spiritual enduement necessary for the offices of deacon and bishop respectively. Doubtless that much is true; but there is nothing to suggest that these gifts are restricted to people serving in these offices. It is at any rate very clear that these spiritual gifts are not among those frequently regarded today as “charismatic,” even though Paul is happy to think of them that way.

Paul ends the section by reminding his readers that all these spiritual gifts “are the work of one and the same Spirit.” This emphasis on the one Spirit prepares us for the one body Paul is about to introduce into the discussion. These gifts, we are further reminded, are distributed to each person: no one is giftless, for the Spirit works with individuals. But a new thought is articulated: not only does the Spirit distribute these gifts to each individual, he does so “just as he determines.”

This clause is taken by some interpreters to entail the conclusion that Paul cannot possibly be exhorting believers in 12:31 and 14:1 to be pursuing the best gifts, since their distribution is bound up with the Spirit’s sovereign determination. The Greek in those verses, it is argued, must therefore not be imperative but indicative: “You eagerly desire . . . ,” not “Eagerly desire. . . .” The same clause is used by noncharismatics to speak against seeking any gift, whether tongues or any other. Both conclusions are premature. They fail to recognize the ways in which God’s sovereignty and human responsibility function side by side in the Scriptures, where philosophical compatibilism is not a problem but a presupposition.72 In Paul’s thought, after all, salvation itself is a χάρισμα (charisma); and if it is sovereignly given in line with God’s elective purposes, it is equally to be sought and gained. This does not evacuate 1 Corinthians 12:11 of all meaning. Paul’s aim is not to discourage Christians from pursuing what is best, but to prevent them from making any one gift the sine qua non, the sign without which one might legitimately call in question whether the Holy Spirit was present and active.73 Christians may pursue what is best of the χαρίσματα (charismata); but they have no right to any particular one, and must ultimately trust the wisdom of their heavenly Father’s gracious distribution through the mediation of his Holy Spirit.

The Baptism in the Holy Spirit and the Body Metaphor: The Mutual Dependence of Believers on One Another (12:12–26)

This section flows quite naturally out of the argument to this point. Indeed, Paul begins verse 12 with the logical γάρ (gar, for): there is a diversity of gifts and graces given to the church for the common good, for the body is a unit with many parts contributing to the organic whole.

The body metaphor that opens this final section of the chapter has plenty of antecedents in the ancient world that need not concern us. They tend to refer to the entire human race.74 One of the most interesting potential backgrounds is the excavated Asclepion, whose remains include a “huge number of terracotta ex-votos, representing heads, hands and feet, arms and legs, breasts and genitals, eyes and ears. . . . These represented the afflicted members cured by a god. . . . Against this background Paul would have seen the dismembered limbs displayed in the Asclepion as symbols of everything that Christians should not be: ‘dead,’ divided, unloving and unloved.”75

Whatever the background, the metaphor takes a strange twist at the end of the verse. We might have expected “so also is the church”; instead, we have “so also is Christ.” The intervening logical step, of course, is that the church is the body of Christ. Paul probably first began to understand such language on the Damascus road, when the exalted Christ did not call out, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute my church?” but “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4).76 Understandably, this has generated considerable debate as to whether Paul’s language in this passage is best thought of as metaphor or as a description of a profound ontological reality.77 Such discussions need not detain us; for if we sidestep the difficult questions about the nature of metaphor, we can still perceive what the functional result of Paul’s step will be. It is this: we are not talking about the human race as a human body in which each member plays a part; nor are we talking about the interrelatedness of the cosmos; still less are we concerned with the body politic. We are talking about something far more important, far more enduring, far more expensive than any of these: we are talking about the church, the body of Christ. For all who truly love Christ, that must be immensely sobering.

Another “for” (γάρ, gar) joins verse 12 to verse 13: that Christians constitute one body, the body of Christ, is established on this truth, that all of them were baptized in (or “by” or “with”: we shall return to that in a moment) one Spirit into one body. All of us belong to that body, Paul tells the Corinthians believers, for all of us78 were baptized into it.

Almost every word and syntactical unit in this verse is disputed, and it would take a very long discussion to weigh all the options. I must here restrict myself to a few remarks.

Scholars from mainline denominations tend to focus attention on the relation between Spirit baptism and such rites as water baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and confirmation. Most of the arguments are admittedly speculative because all must concede that Paul does not write these words with the purpose of sorting such matters out. The connection between Spirit baptism and water baptism is in my judgment neatly summarized by Bruce:

Faith-union with Christ brought his people into membership of the Spirit-baptized community, procuring for them the benefits of the once-for-all outpouring of the Spirit at the dawn of the new age, while baptism in water was retained as the outward and visible sign of their incorporation ‘into Christ’ (cf. Gal. 3:27). And as it was in one Spirit that they were all baptized, therefore it was into one body that they were all baptized.79

Those who find the Lord’s Supper in verse 13 find it in the second part of the verse: baptism in the first part, the Lord’s Supper in the second.80 Neither the verb nor the tense behind the expression “we were all given one Spirit to drink”81 is particularly congenial to that interpretation,82 any more than to the interpretation that finds confirmation in verse 13b.83 But these debates do alert us to the fact that there is a long tradition of reading one’s particular ecclesiastical tradition into the text; and one must wonder if history is repeating itself in contemporary debates over the charismatic movement, even though it is a rather different tradition that is now being found there.

Lengthy debate has been waged as to whether this baptism brings about this body,84 or incorporates people into a body that is already preexistent.85 The latter is surely correct—not, with Conzelmann, because this view corresponds with prevailing Hellenistic notions of space, but because the church exists as an entity before the Corinthians are incorporated into it. In other words, the answer turns on the Corinthians’ concrete historical experience, not on speculative notions of space. If then we push the question farther back and ask if the first Christian was baptized into a church that already existed, or was somehow by his baptism establishing the church, we must return to Pentecost and ask questions about the relationship between the post-Pentecost church and the people of God before Pentecost. That subject I shall reserve for the last chapter, for it does not concern Paul here.

Speaking of Pentecost, a certain reading of Acts 2 governs the interpretation of this text in 1 Corinthians among an older generation of Pentecostalists, especially at the popular level. This baptism in the Spirit is in their view a postconversion experience in line with the dominant Pentecostalist and neo-Pentecostalist interpretation of the Book of Acts. The first “we . . . all” of verse 13 does not embrace all Christians, but only those who have enjoyed this postconversion enduement. This interpretation is supported in various ways. For instance, some have argued that εἰς ἕν σῶμα (eis hen sōma) should not be rendered “into one body” but something like “for the body.” This means that the Spirit-baptism in this verse does not incorporate its beneficiaries “into one body” (which would clearly embrace all believers and therefore rule out any view that assigns this baptism to only a subset of believers), but simply prepares some believers for the body (i.e., for service in the body).86 But these and similar arguments have been so soundly refuted87 that nowadays an increasing number of charismatics acknowledge the point.88 Perhaps the most startling weakness of the entire theory lies in its insensitivity to the context. The flow, including the initial “for,” demands that Paul be talking about the incorporation of all believers into the one body that constitutes the theme of the verse preceding verse 13 and of the verses succeeding it.

Contemporary charismatics cannot be categorized as easily as their Pentecostal forebears. Roman Catholic charismatics, for instance, tend to play down interpretations of the baptism of the Spirit that form part of a larger “second-blessing” theology; most Protestant charismatics retain some form of that tradition. So far as this verse is concerned, however, the evidence for this position is now less frequently drawn from verse 13a than previously; appeal is made instead to verse 13b.89 If we concede that the baptism in the Spirit in verse 13a is related to conversion, they say in effect, we still believe there are strong reasons to think that “we were all given the one Spirit to drink” (v. 13b)—or however the Greek be translated—refers to a second work of the Spirit. After all, writes one charismatic author, “the imagery of drinking one’s way into the body is more than a curious mixing of metaphors.”90 But of course that is not what Paul says. The idea of being given to drink of one Spirit, in the noncharismatic view, does not stand in parallel to “baptism in Spirit,” but to “baptism in Spirit into the one body.” In other words, Paul adds one metaphor to another, and expects his readers not to mix them. Another scholar in the charismatic tradition compares Galatians 3:27 and the pair “baptized into Christ”/“clothed with Christ,” and argues that since “clothed” language “is readily identifiable with the charismatic Spirit,”91 a similar move from initiation in 12:13a to charismatic enduement in 12:13b is entirely defensible. But Galatians 3:27b speaks of being clothed with Christ, not the Spirit; and there is simply no New Testament tie that connects this “being clothed” language with charismatic (in the modern sense) enduement.

I think the verb ποτίζω (potizō), which often means “I make to drink,” here bears another common meaning, “I flood” or “I pour out” as in irrigation. The connection between this verb and Spirit is found in only one other biblical passage (Isa. 29:10 [LXX]) where it bears this meaning. The sense of the passive form ἐποτίσθημεν (epotisthēmen) in this passage, then, should be rendered “we were all drenched” or “we were all flooded” in one Spirit.92 But who are the “we . . . all”? Are they not exactly the same people embraced by the same words in verse 13a? One charismatic writer tries to escape this difficulty by suggesting that “we . . . all” refers to all the believers in Corinth, not all Christians everywhere. It could not be said of all Christians everywhere that they have received this second enduement; but it could be said of the Corinthian believers.93 This sounds too much like special pleading. Why did not Paul then write “you . . . all” to make his point clearer? At the beginning of this chapter we noticed some evidence that we shall have occasion to weigh more thoroughly in the fourth chapter: these chapters betray the fact that there was a non-tongues-speaking party at Corinth. More important, how does the introduction of a second work of the Spirit contribute to the flow of the argument? As Packer puts it, “Reference to a second blessing has to be read into the text; it cannot be read out of it.”94

Finally, I should say something about ἐν ἑνὶ πνεύματι (en heni pneumati), “in one Spirit” or “by one Spirit” or “with one Spirit.” It has sometimes been argued that if we render the Greek phrase by “in one Spirit,” the combination of “in one Spirit into one body” is so harsh as to be unacceptable. Therefore the phrase in question must be instrumental: “we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body.”95 On this basis, some have argued that although this baptism with or by the Spirit is coincidental with conversion, in the Gospels and Acts the baptism in the Spirit is something different: a postconversion experience. If so, this would be the only place in the New Testament where the Spirit is the agent of the baptism. In the other six instances, related to the prophecy of John the Baptist, Christ as the agent does the baptizing, and the Holy Spirit is the medium or sphere in which we are baptized. Moreover, whenever the verb baptize is used in the New Testament, it is the medium of the baptism—water, fire, cloud, and so forth—that is expressed using this preposition ἐν (en), not the agent. Although “in one Spirit into one body” sounds harsh in English, it is not at all clear that it is harsh in Greek, partly because the English paronomasia is absent. Indeed, the combination of Greek phrases nicely stresses exactly the point that Paul is trying to make: all Christians have been baptized in one Spirit; all Christians have been baptized into one body. So much attention has been centered on the prepositions that we have neglected Paul’s repetition of the adjective one. Paul is setting the stage to demonstrate, in the words of MacGorman, “There are no one-member churches, nor are there any every-member gifts.”96 Whatever one finally decides about the disputed phrase, however, it is important to recognize that nothing crucial hangs on the outcome: charismatics and noncharismatics alike have held both sides on the issue.97

The oneness of the body, the church, predicated on the fact that all its members have been baptized in one spirit into this body, is now applied to the problems in Corinth.98 Whenever an elitist group claims to have an inside track or a “full” gospel not recognized by others, then quite apart from the merits of the claim certain divisive forces come into play. The claims generate a kind of inner-ring syndrome: the insiders feel secure but dangerously smug, and the outsiders feel threatened and put upon. Some of the latter group may also in time stoop to feelings of superiority: they are not arrogant and smug like those misguided elitists!

Paul deals with both groups in turn. In verses 14–19, he tells the outsiders that, precisely because of the diversity of gifts God has distributed in the church, the member that seems inferior cannot reasonably say it does not belong, or threaten to leave. In each pair Paul mentions (foot/hand, ear/eye), it is the part that seems inferior that is making its case, in a kind of self-pitying fashion.99 But it can bemoan its limitations all it likes; it does not on their account100 stop being a member of the body. Indeed, a body consisting of a single organ—a giant eyeball, perhaps, or one single, massive toenail or knee—would be grotesque. The body requires the contribution of each member. So it is silly, for instance, for a Christian with the χάρισμα (charisma) of encouragement or of giving to feel hopelessly threatened by someone with the χάρισμα (charisma) of tongues.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the doctrines of the charismatic movement, we are forced to reflect on the many Christians whom charismatics have discouraged. I could provide a long list of Christian university groups and local churches where, once the charismatic movement became dominant with strong pressure to speak in tongues as the decisive proof of Spirit baptism, other Christians gradually walked away and drifted to other groups or churches. Doubtless if they did so they displayed little grasp of these verses; doubtless the charismatics whose views prompted the withdrawal displayed little grasp of this chapter. The fact of the matter is that “God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be” (12:18)—a repetition of the thought of verse 11, focusing here on God and not the Spirit per se.

Paul now turns to the elitists themselves (vv. 20–26). No longer in this extended metaphor do the members speak to themselves from a position of inferiority, as in the preceding verses; here the members speak to those they judge inferior, in wretched, condescending tones. Few barbs hurt more than a blistering “I don’t need you!” At this point the elitists may be either the so-called charismatics or those who oppose them: it is their attitude that Paul excoriates. The Christian who has any particular gift, whether tongues or anything else, has no right to dismiss in any sense that fellow believer who has some other gift. Thiessen offers a sociological interpretation of the more honorable and the less honorable, and so forth;101 but I suspect he is missing the point. At the level of the metaphor, Paul is still dealing with the body, and the less presentable or less honorable parts are probably sexual organs, judging by the “shame” language. At the level of the church, Paul is not here interested in the varied social strata that made up the Corinthian church, but in the perceived stratification of the χάρισματα (charismata). God’s intent is to honor what others dishonor. Applied to the church, it becomes our collective responsibility to honor gifts given little thought or prominence.

As in a body, the pain of one member is the pain of all. If you smash your finger with a hammer, you may exclaim with equal appropriateness, “I hurt my finger!” or “I hurt myself!” The same principle holds when some member is honored. Can we think of Placido Domingo’s voice apart from the man? We do not honor his voice alone; we honor him. “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” (12:26). So must it be in the church. No Christian is to think in individualistic terms, but in terms of the body. Where this attitude dominates the believers, there can no longer be any place for spiritual one-upmanship, self-promotion, or an unbalanced stress on select gifts.

Conclusion (12:27–30)

As if the metaphor were not already clear enough, Paul spells it out yet once more: “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” “You” and “body of Christ” are the equivalents of “church,” indeed, in this context the Corinthian church. In the New Testament, characteristically each local church is not a part of the whole church, but simply the church—the outcropping of the church or the exemplar of the church in any particular place. So also with Paul’s language about the body. Paul does not mean that each congregation is a part of the body of Christ, or a body of Christ. Each congregation, each church is the body of Christ. Each local church, if I may put it this way, is the exemplification of the church. The people of God in any place are the people of God, the church, not simply a part of the people of God.102 And it is in the church that God has appointed various spiritual gifts. This does not mean therefore that each local congregation must have apostles on site; for there is a sense in which if God gives apostles to his church, his people, then of course they are apostles of any particular outcropping of the church, of what we may call the local church. Paul’s purpose at this juncture is not to establish ecclesiastical order but to stress the rich diversity of God’s good gifts poured out on the church.

This list (v. 28) was partly discussed in connection with verses 8–11. I shall say more about “apostles,” “prophets,” and “teachers” in the third chapter. The main purpose of the list in this context, however, is to lead up to the concluding rhetorical questions, whose form in Greek indicates that Paul expects a firm negative after each one: “Are all apostles? No! Are all prophets? No! Are all teachers? No! Do all work miracles? No! Do all have gifts of healing? No! Do all speak in tongues? No! Do all interpret? No!”

We have not yet considered other passages in the New Testament, of course; but on the basis of this chapter, at least, and its concluding rhetorical questions, how dare we make any one χάρισμα (charisma) the criterion of a certain enduement of the Spirit? How dare we make tongues the test of the Spirit’s baptism?

It would be premature to try to draw together many theological and practical strands; moreover, I have not yet attempted to identify the admirable features in the charismatic movement. But I must offer at least one suggestion. If the charismatic movement would firmly renounce, on biblical grounds, not the gift of tongues but the idea that tongues constitute a special sign of a second blessing, a very substantial part of the wall between charismatics and noncharismatics would come crashing down. Does 1 Corinthians 12 demand any less?

Thank God that, beyond all the χάρισματα (charismata), there remains a more excellent way.

  

1. E.g., John C. Hurd, The Origin of 1 Corinthians (New York: Seabury, 1965), 186–87; K. S. Hemphill, “The Pauline Concept of Charisma: A Situational and Developmental Approach” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1976), 45ff.; and see A. C. Thiselton, “Realized Eschatology at Corinth,” New Testament Studies 24 (1978): 510–26.

2. See especially Thiselton, ibid.

3. Ralph P. Martin, The Spirit and the Congregation: Studies in 1 Corinthians 12–15 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984).

4. The translation of the NIV, “It is good for a man not to marry,” is incorrect: see Gordon D. Fee, “1 Corinthians 7:1 in the NIV,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 23 (1980): 307–14.

5. The varied forms of adversative (e.g., ἀλλά, μᾶλλον δέ) are no impediment to the observation, since the argument turns on the logical relationship of a pair of clauses within a context, not to a purely lexical feature.

6. The “but” that immediately succeeds 14:39 does not belong to the “yes—but” form of argument, since it is immediately preceded by a prohibition.

7. See Mattie Elizabeth Hart, “Speaking in Tongues and Prophecy as Understood by Paul and at Corinth, with Reference to Early Christian Usage” (Ph.D. diss., University of Durham, 1975), whose primary ambition is to demonstrate that there were both “procharismatic” and “anticharismatic” forces at Corinth, while Paul adopts a stance that is open to every work of the Spirit yet critical of much of what he observes at Corinth.

8. E.g., Hurd, Origins of 1 Corinthians, 193–95; Gordon D. Fee, “Tongues—Least of the Gifts? Some Exegetical Observations on 1 Corinthians 12–14,” Pneuma 2/2 (1980): 4–7.

9. E.g., in Ecclus. 7:33, the correct word is probably χάρις; not χάρισμα; and in 38:34[30] the original may be χρῖσμα: see Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 2d ed. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1914). There is no textually certain pre-Pauline example: see Siegfried Schulz, “Die Charismenlehre des Paulus: Bilanz der Probleme und Ergebnisse,” in Rechtfertigung: Festschrift für Ernst Käsemann, ed. Johannes Friedrich, Wolfgang Pöhlmann, and Peter Stuhlmacher (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1976), 445–46; U. Brockhaus, Charisma und Amt, 2d ed. (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1975), 128–29.

10. F. Grau, “Der neutestamentliche Begriff χάρισμα” (Ph.D. diss., Tübingen University, 1946 [I have not been able to secure a copy; I know of this work only from secondary sources]); Ernst Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, trans. W. J. Montague (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 64–65; James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 209.

11. For excellent discussion, see M. M. B. Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now,” Vox Evangelica 15 (1985): 30–31.

12. Ibid., 30.

13. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit, 209.

14. Hemphill, “Pauline Concept of Charisma,” 78 n. 92.

15. As many do: e.g., John Howard Schütz, Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 277, argues that Paul’s authority rests precisely in his ability to help his readers experience the same “charismatic” power he enjoys; and John Koenig, “From Mystery to Ministry: Paul as Interpreter of Charismatic Gifts,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 33 (1978): 167–74, associates χάρισμα and μυστήριον to argue that the ultimate concern behind even the “mysteries” to which Paul as a charismatic has access is ministry.

16. E.g., Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, 66; Brockhaus, Charisma und Amt, 150ff.; D. Moody Smith, “Glossolalia and Other Spiritual Gifts in a New Testament Perspective,” Interpretation 28 (1974): 311; Birger Albert Pearson, The Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1973), 44.

17. E.g., Pearson, Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology, argues that the reference is to prophecy alone; Max-Alain Chevallier, Esprit de Dieu, Paroles d’Hommes (Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1966), followed by David L. Baker, “The Interpretation of 1 Cor. 12–14,” Evangelical Quarterly 46 (1974): 224–34, argues for both prophecy and tongues. See also D. W. B. Robinson, “Charismata versus Pneumatika: Paul’s Method of Discussion,” Reformed Theological Review 31 (1972): 49–55, who draws attention to the parallel between 14:1 and 14:5 both with μᾶλλον δέ. But this does not mean that the only πνευματικά in the Corinthians’ mind were prophecy and tongues, but only that the gift of tongues was the principal focus of abuse, and the gift of prophecy was the foil Paul used to show how ideally spiritual gifts should serve others. The particular use of the disjunction made by Martin, The Spirit and the Congregation, is compounded by his retrieval of quotes from the Corinthians’ letter—a point that will be discussed later.

18. See especially Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982), 157–62.

19. F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, New Century Bible (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1971), ad loc.

20. See especially Grudem, Gift of Prophecy, 162–64; C. Senft, La première épître de saint Paul aux Corinthiens (Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1979); contra C. Wolff, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther. Zweiter Teil: Auslegung der Kapitel 9–16 (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1982); K. Maly, “1 Kor. 12, 1–3: Ein Regel zur Unterscheidung der Geister?,” Biblische Zeitschrift 10 (1966): 82–95, prefers to draw a distinction between the dumb idols (v. 2) and the Spirit-impelled talking believers in v. 3, and thus necessarily avoids detecting ecstatic pagan cults in v. 2.

21. See David E. Aune, “Magic in Early Christianity,” in Aufstieg und Niedergange der römischen Welt II.2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980), 1549–51; and J. Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 212–24.

22. G. de Broglie, “Le texte fondamentale de Saint Paul contre la foi naturelle,” Recherches de Science religieuse 39 (1951): 253–66; André Mehat, “L’Enseignement sur ‘les choses de l’Esprit’ (1 Corinthiens 12, 1–3),” Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 63 (1983): 395–415. Mehat also points out that this interpretation was favored by some older commentators, e.g., Cajetan and Bisping.

23. Mehat, ibid., 410–15.

24. Eduard Schweizer, The Holy Spirit, trans. Reginald and Ilse Fuller (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 126.

25. Since there is no verb, it is uncertain whether Paul means εἴη or ἐστίν; but by analogy with “Jesus is Lord” (equally without a verb, but with an unambiguous meaning), the latter is marginally more likely.

26. C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 2d ed. (London: Black, 1971).

27. See Ceslaus Spicq, Agapé dans le Nouveau Testament, 3 vols. (Paris: Gabalda, 1958–59), ad loc.

28. The question is extremely difficult: cf. the relevant text from Origen cited and discussed in Hans Conzelmann, First Corinthians: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible, ed. George W. MacRae, trans. James W. Leitch, Hermeneia series (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 204 n. 10, with a contrary position taken by Grudem, Gift of Prophecy, 168–69.

29. Adolf Schlatter, Paulus—Der Bote Jesu: Eine Deutung seiner Briefe an die Korinther, 3d ed. (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1962), 333.

30. Schlatter draws special attention to inter alia Deut. 21:23; but for the Masoretic Text’s קִלְלַת אֱלֹהִים (cursed of God) the Septuagint offers κεκατηραμένος, and Paul elsewhere uses ἐπικατάρατος (cf. Gal. 3:13); so it is unclear that a passage like Deut. 21:23 would have suggested itself to the reader. On the bearing of 1QpNah 1.7–8, see Conzelmann, First Corinthians.

31. J. Duncan M. Derrett, “Cursing Jesus (1 Cor. XIII.3): The Jews as Religious ‘Persecutors,’” New Testament Studies 21 (1974–75): 544–54.

32. J. M. Bassler, “1 Cor. 12:3—Curse and Confession in Context,” Journal of Biblical Literature 101 (1982): 415–18.

33. W. C. van Unnik, “Jesus: Anathema or Kyrios (1 Cor. 12:3),” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: Studies in Honour of C. F. D. Moule, ed. Barnabas Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 113–26.

34. Cf. Grudem, Gift of Prophecy, 170–71 n. 93.

35. E.g., Walther Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth: An Investigation of the Letters to the Corinthians, trans. John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1971); Norbert Brox, “ΑΝΑΘΕΜΑ ἸΗΣΟΥΣ (1 Kor. 12,3),” Biblische Zeitschrift 12 (1968): 103–11; R. H. Fuller, “Tongues in the New Testament,” American Church Quarterly 3 (1963): 162–68.

36. See especially Pearson, Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology, 48–49.

37. W. F. Albright and C. S. Mann, “Two Texts in 1 Corinthians,” New Testament Studies 16 (1969–70): 271–76.

38. E.g., Barrett, First Epistle to the Corinthians, following E.-B. Allo, Première épître aux Corinthiens, 2d ed. (Paris: Gabalda, 1956).

39. E.g., Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians; de Broglie, “Le texte fondamentale”; David E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 256–57.

40. E.g., F. W. Grosheide (Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953]) suggests that some Corinthian believers were worried that some of the utterances spoken in unintelligible tongues might actually be blasphemous statements, possibly unrecognized even by the speakers; and Paul reassures them by saying that no one who has the Spirit of God could possibly say such things. But it is difficult to see how this fits with the second part of the verse. H. D. Seyer, The Stewardship of Spiritual Gifts: A Study of First Corinthians, Chapters Twelve, Thirteen, and Fourteen, and the Charismatic Movement (Madison: Fleetwood, 1974), 7–8, casting around for a modern instance in which tongues-speaking led to blasphemy, urges the example of Edward Irving, who (he claims) became enmeshed in tongues and thereby became so distorted in his Christology that he was eventually deposed from the ministry. But the parallel is both inappropriate and historically distorted: inappropriate because there is no suggestion that tongues were the vehicle of blasphemy, and historically distorted because Irving’s root christological deviations antedated his tongues-speaking experiences (most recently, see Arnold Dallimore, Forerunner of the Charismatic Movement: The Life of Edward Irving [Chicago: Moody, 1983]).

41. The parallel to Eph. 4:1–16 has been strenuously denied by Rudolf Schnackenburg, “Christus, Geist und Gemeinde (Eph. 4:1–16),” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: Studies in Honour of C. F. D. Moule, ed. Barnabas Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 279–96, especially 290–91, who argues that the “each” in Eph. 4:7 introduces a change of subject and refers to official office-bearers in the church, thus apparently breaking the flow from the stress on unity (4:1–6) to the stress on diversity (4:7–16). He has been decisively rebutted by Ronald Y. K. Fung, “Ministry in the New Testament,” in The Church in the Bible and the World, ed. D. A. Carson (Exeter: Paternoster, 1987), especially n. 28.

42. See the exchange between Joachim Gnilka, “Geistliches Amt und Gemeinde nach Paulus,” in Foi et Salut selon S. Paul, ed. D. G. B. Franzoni et al., Analecta Biblica, vol. 42 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1970), 233–53; and in the same volume, the discussion of the article by C. F. Evans.

43. E.g., Conzelmann, First Corinthians; Johannes Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, 10th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1897).

44. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians.

45. See D. Pitt Francis, “The Holy Spirit: A Statistical Inquiry,” The Expository Times 96 (1985): 136–37.

46. Robinson, “Charismata versus Pneumatika,” 54.

47. So Hans Lietzmann and Werner George Kümmel, An die Korinther I. II, Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, vol. 9 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1969).

48. Because τὰ πάντα is articular,, it is better to take it as a substantive than as adverbial (“in every way”), contra Martin, The Spirit and the Congregation, 5.

49. Cf. Eduard Schweizer; Church Order in the New Testament, trans. Frank Clarke, Studies in Biblical Theology, vol. 32 (London: SCM, 1971), 173–76.

50. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians.

51. Robertson and Plummer, Corinthians.

52. So inter alios Robertson and Plummer, Corinthians. C. F. G. Heinrici holds the genitive is subjective, “the manifestation that the Spirit gives.” There is no syntactical clue that clarifies the meaning. But there are some interesting parallels (ἡ φανέρωσις τῆς ἀληθείας [2 Cor. 4:2] is clearly objective); and more important, nowhere do these chapters explicitly make the Spirit the giver of the spiritual gifts (cf. discussion, supra).

53. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians.

54. Cf. the list in Brockhaus, Charisma und Amt, 204 n. 3.

55. πρòς τò συμφέρον in the best texts.

56. Some link the last two in Ephesians.

57. Cf. Charles E. Hummel, Fire in the Fireplace: Contemporary Charismatic Renewal (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity, 1978), 243–46.

58. E.g., Fee, “Tongues,” 9–11.

59. See Matt. 10:2–4; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:13–16; and discussion in D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, 12 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 8:237.

60. See Martin, The Spirit and the Congregation, 11–12.

61. Robertson and Plummer adduce an example from Homer, Iliad 13.730–32.

62. George T. Montague, The Holy Spirit: Growth of a Biblical Tradition (New York: Paulist, 1976), 151.

63. Oda Wischmeyer, Der höchste Weg. Das 13. Kapitel des 1. Korintherbriefes (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1981), 73, helpfully distinguishes between Kerygmaglaube and Wunderglaube. Presumably faith is tied to action rather than knowledge. Robertson and Plummer cite Chrysostom: πίστιν οὐ τὴν τῶν δογμάτων, ἀλλὰ την τῶν σημείων.

64. The issues are extremely complex: see C. M. Tuckett, “1 Corinthians and Q,” Journal of Biblical Literature 102 (1983): 607–19.

65. The gift of faith here and in 13:2, as I have expounded it, is rather different from what is often meant by “the prayer of faith” in some Reformed circles. The latter is a prayer grounded in the promises of God in Scripture: the wavering believer petitions God for help on the basis of, say, John 10:28 and Phil. 1:6, just as Moses interceded with God on behalf of the Israelites on the basis of antecedent divine promises (Exod. 32:11–14). Such “prayers of faith” are principally open to every believer, for the promises, the bases of such faith, are in the public arena. But the gift of faith in 1 Cor. 12:9; 13:2 is amongst the χαρίσματα (charismata) that are not universally distributed to the church (12:12–31). It appears to be the God-given ability, without fakery or platitudinous exhortations to believe what you do not really believe, to trust God for a certain blessing not promised in Scripture—exactly as in the well-known case of George Müller of Bristol.

66. Conzelmann, First Corinthians, citing Rudolf Bultmann, “πίστις, etc.,” TDNT 6:206; but in fact Bultmann does not go so far.

67. John Wilkinson, Health and Healing: Studies in New Testament Principles and Practice (Edinburg: Handsel, 1980), 109.

68. Gerhard Dautzenberg, “Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund der διάκρισις πνευμάτων (1 Kor. 12, 10),” Biblische Zeitschrift 15 (1971): 93–104.

69. Wayne A. Grudem, “A Response to Gerhard Dautzenberg on 1 Cor. 12:10,” Biblische Zeitschrift 22 (1978): 253–70.

70. The rendering here is that of Barrett.

71. Apparently the NIV translators decided to make the list consistent by casting all its entries in personal terms, instead of the first three only.

72. See D. A. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981).

73. Cf. Hemphill, “Pauline Concept of Charisma,” 124.

74. See Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians; Conzelmann, First Corinthians.

75. J. Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington: Glazier, 1983), 165, 167. See also Mabel Lang, Cure and Cult in Ancient Corinth: A Guide to the Asklepion (Princeton: American School of Classical Studies of Athens, 1977); Andrew E. Hill, “The Temple of Asclepius: An Alternate Source for Paul’s Body Theology,” Journal of Biblical Literature 99 (1980): 437–39; G. G. Garner, “The Temple of Asklepius at Corinth and Paul’s Teaching,” Buried History (Melbourne) 18 (1982): 52–58.

76. See John A. T. Robinson, The Body (London: SCM, 1952), 58–59; and especially Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981); Paul S. Minear, Images of the Church in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 190–95.

77. See inter alios Conzelmann, First Corinthians; Ernst Käsemann, Leib und Leib Christi (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1933); Colin G. Kruse, New Testament Models for Ministry: Jesus and Paul (Nashville: Nelson, 1983), 116–18; J. Havet, “Christ collectif ou Christ individual en 1 Cor., XIII,12?,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovaniensis 23 (1947): 499–529; and especially Edmund P. Clowney, “Interpreting the Biblical Models of the Church: A Hermeneutical Deepening of Ecclesiology,” in Biblical Interpretation and the Church: Text and Context, ed. D. A. Carson (Exeter: Paternoster, 1984), 64–109.

78. The ἡμεῖς πάντες pair is emphatic, regardless of debates over its referent.

79. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, ad loc.

80. E.g., Käsemann, Leib und Leib Christi, 176; Schlatter, Paulus; Heinz-Dietrich Wendland, Die Briefe an die Korinther, Das Neue Testament Deutsch, vol. 7, 13th ed. (1936; reprint ed., Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1972).

81. ἐποτίσθημεν.

82. Cf. Rudolf Schnackenburg, Baptism in the Thought of St. Paul: A Study in Pauline Theology, trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray (New York: Herder and Herder, 1064), 84.

83. Contra Joseph Hanimann, “Nous avons été abreuvés d’un seul Esprit,” Nouvelle Revue Théologique 94 (1972): 400–405.

84. So Franz Mussner, Christus, das All und die Kirche im Epheserbrief (Trier: Paulinus, 1955), 125ff.; Lucien Cerfaux, The Church in the Theology of Saint Paul, trans. Geoffrey Webb and Adrian Walker (New York: Herder and Herder, 1959), 270–77.

85. Conzelmann, First Corinthians.

86. By contrast, some early charismatic writers (e.g., Ralph M. Riggs, The Holy Spirit Himself [Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing, 1949], 58) held to the view that the baptism in the Spirit in v. 13a is to be connected with conversion, leaving the second work of grace for v. 13b.

87. See inter alios James D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Studies in Biblical Theology, vol. 15 (London: SCM, 1970), 127ff.; John R. W. Stott, The Baptism and Fullness of the Holy Spirit (Chicago: Inter-Varsity, 1964), 23; Frederick Dale Bruner, A Theology of the Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience and the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 291ff.

88. This does not mean that charismatic writers willingly accept all the arguments of noncharismatics on 12:13a, but only that the main point is now largely conceded: that the Spirit baptism in v. 13a is to be linked with conversion. The charismatic focus then switches to v. 13b: for the argument and bibliography, see infra.

89. E.g., Howard M. Ervin, Conversion-Initiation and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit: A Critique of James D. G. Dunn, “Baptism in the Holy Spirit” (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1984), 98–102; Harold D. Hunter, Spirit-Baptism: A Pentecostal Alternative (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1983), 39–42.

90. Ervin, Conversion-Initiation, 100.

91. Hunter, Spirit-Baptism, 41.

92. This rendering is increasingly recognized by charismatics and noncharismatics alike; but other options are often set forth: e.g., G. J. Cuming, “ἐποτίσθημεν (I Corinthians 12,13),” New Testament Studies 27 (1981): 283–85; E. R. Rogers, “ΕΠΟΤΙΣΘΗΜΕΝ Again,” New Testament Studies 29 (1983): 139–42.

93. R. E. Cottle, “All Were Baptized,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 17 (1974): 75–80.

94. J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit (Leicester: Inter-Varsity; Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1984), 203.

95. So, for instance, Michael Green, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 141.

96. Jack W. MacGorman, The Gifts of the Spirit: An Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Nashville: Broadman, 1974), 394.

97. E.g., Robert L. Thomas, Understanding Spiritual Gifts: The Christian’s Special Gifts in the Light of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Chicago: Moody, 1978), 186–87, a noncharismatic, favors taking the preposition in an instrumental sense.

98. The connecting Καὶ γάρ should be rendered “for indeed” (Conzelmann).

99. See Robertson and Plummer; Weiss, contra Conzelmann, who thinks vv. 14–15 are directed against enthusiastic individuals whose sense of superiority is prompting them to withdraw.

100. For discussion of this rendering of παρὰ τοῦτο, see Thomas, Understanding Spiritual Gifts, 190–91.

101. Gerd Thiessen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 56, 72.

102. For thoughtful discussion, see Peter T. O’Brien, “The Church as a Heavenly and Eschatological Entity,” in The Church in the Bible and the Word, ed. D. A. Carson (Exeter: Paternoster, 1987). Anarthrous σῶμα χριστοῦ must not be taken to mean “a body of Christ.”