Doug Van Meter - 28 January 2024
Reforming Worship (1 Corinthians 12:1–6)
In 1 Corinthians 12–14, Paul is concerned with the reformation of corporate worship in a church, which was largely disregarding the Spirit’s ministry of pointing believers to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Therefore, in 12:1–6, he begins a long discourse on the essence of what it means to be “spiritual.” We will study this under three headings: 1. Ignorant Worship (vv. 1–2) 2. Intelligent Worship (v. 3) 3. Instructive Worship (vv. 4–6)
Scripture References: 1 Corinthians 12:1-6
From Series: "1 Corinthians Exposition"
An exposition of 1 Corinthians by Doug Van Meter.
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The subject of spiritual gifts has for a long time been a matter of great controversy. From the 1970s through the early 2000s, many books were published, some arguing for and some arguing against the position that all of the more “spectacular” spiritual gifts are still operational. In addition, there have also been weird and not-so-wonderful movements claiming to be “of the Spirit” (e.g. the Toronto Blessing). The result has been much debate and division in and between churches. Sadly, amid justifiable cautions, there has also been unhelpful defamation of good Christians, which is all rather ironic when one considers that that a major ministry of the Holy Spirit is to provide unity between Christians as we gather under the lordship of Jesus Christ! This is the very point of Paul’s instructions to the Corinthian church in chapters 12–14.
In these chapter, Paul is concerned with the reformation of corporate worship in a church that was largely disregarding the Spirit’s ministry of pointing believers to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Therefore, in 12:1–6, Paul begins a long discourse on the essence of what it means to be “spiritual.”
Paul wanted the Corinthian church to participate in biblical worship when they gathered each Lord’s Day. He wanted them to experience the ministry of the Holy Spirit pointing them, as a body, to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, they were guilty of a pseudo-spirituality in which self-exaltation, rather than the Saviour’s exaltation, was the (dis)order of the day. He knew that the exercise of true spiritual worship was required for their coming together to be for the better, not for the worse (11:17, 33–34). He therefore instructs them concerning what true spiritual, scriptural worship looks like. To do so, he commences by addressing three major themes:
- Ignorant Worship (vv. 1–2)
- Intelligent Worship (v. 3)
- Instructive Worship (vv. 4–6)
Ignorant Worship
Paul begins by addressing the matter of ignorant worship: “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led” (vv. 1–2).
Imagine you are a Corinthian who has recently been converted out of an idolatrous religious background, now a member of the Corinthian Baptist Church.
When you were a devotee to, say, Aphrodite or Bacchus, you used to work yourself up into a frenzy, sometimes accompanied by narcotics and/or alcohol (Ephesians 5:18). Your mind was disengaged, your emotions out of control, and you unwittingly verbalised irresponsible things. After all, as Plato taught, “We reach the highest state of good through frenzy.” This was a common approach to religious worship in the ancient and world, and it remains so in much of our not-so-ancient world!
One day, in the marketplace, you hear a short Jewish man proclaiming that a man named Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead. You listen intently as he says that this man was sent from God as the Jewish Messiah (a concept your Jewish friends have mentioned to you) but that he was ultimately sent to save all of his people—Jew and Gentile—from their sins. You are captivated as he gives his personal witness of what this Jesus Christ has done in his life, completely transforming him, taking away his guilt, forgiving his sins, reconciling him to God, and producing in him undying love for him and for his people—Jewish and Gentile.
You listen, intrigued, as this man unashamedly declares that this Jesus Christ alone is Lord. Wow! What boldness! After all, though the Corinthians under Roman rule were allowed to worship whomever or whatever they wanted, nevertheless everyone was well schooled in the ideology that, actually, Caesar is lord. You glance around, nervously anticipating Roman authorities coming on the scene to arrest this political heretic.
All of a sudden, something inexplicable happens, and you find that your heart is strangely warmed by the good news you are hearing. You find yourself moved to repent of your sin, trusting in this Jesus Christ to make you right with God. You find yourself confessing Jesus Christ as Lord—as your Lord. You are then soaking wet as you become a member of the Corinthian Baptist Church. For the first time in your life, despite years of frenzied religion, you are now truly spiritual (2:7ff).
The next Lord’s Day, you gather with others whose lives have been undeniably changed by the one you now call “Lord.” In fact, in unison with your fellow church members, you stand together, raise your voice and say, “Jesus is Lord.”
As you do so, your mind reverts to your earlier days as a pagan when you or others who falsely worshipped with you were tempted to say the most awful things about Jesus Christ, such things as awful as, “Jesus be damned!” Though grateful for God’s gracious deliverance, grateful that you can celebrate this salvation with others as you “come together,” something just does not seem right.
With all the talk about the Spirit, the Son, and God the Father, and with all the activity taking place as the community of the faithful in Corinth gather, there is a spiritual incongruency. Though the triune God is unified in love, the transformed people of God are not. In fact, it seems that, when you gather, everyone is doing what is right in his or her own eyes. There seems to be a competition over who is the most “spiritual,” who exercises the most spectacular so called “gifts” of God. People are all talking at the same time, each trying to outshout the other. Various people are giving diverse interpretations of what is being preached. Those who don’t appear to have any special, “outstanding” gift are treated with indifference at best or dismissal at worst. Though some seem to display (or at least vocalise) great faith—such faith that they think they could move mountains—there is an absence of love. In fact, you would prefer the gathering to be less loud and more love!
You often think about inviting your friends to come and hear the gospel but, to be frank, you are hesitant because what is happening is actually a cause more for embarrassment than for evangelism. You suspect that they would find much to criticise with very little that would savingly convict them. Because of all of this you are discouraged and are thinking about leaving this church to join another. But then you realise that there is no other! What to do?
At your point of despondency, you receive word that someone has just arrived from Ephesus with a letter from Paul. He is responding to the very same concerns that have burdened you.
As a leader in the church reads through the letter, you appreciate the instructions, corrections, and encouragements. Your ears prick up at hearing the words, “Now concerning spiritual things.” Finally, perhaps this will sort the church out! Perhaps there will be a reformation of worship. “Finally, we will know what truly characterises spirituality.” If you are feeling discouraged because you have not demonstrated any “spectacular” manifestations of the Spirit’s presence, perhaps you will find that you aren’t sub-standard after all. Your hope for answers increases upon hearing, “Brothers I do not want you to be uninformed.” Ah, no longer ignorant about worship!
The first thing Paul does is to remind former “pagans” (ethnos) that, formerly, their “worship” was mindless and essentially ignorant, since they “were led astray to mut idols.” This pictures being irrationally carried away. Leon Morris notes, “The heathen are pictured, not as people freely following the god their intellects have fully approved, but as under constraint, as helpless, as people who know no better.” He then comments, “‘Mute idols’ characterizes their deities as totally unable to answer those who call upon them. They could give no revelation. They could make nothing known to their worshippers…. And no matter how they were led, they were brought only to mute deities.” He concludes, “There is something pathetic about idol worship.” I would add that there is something pathetic about ignorant worship.
We all need to hear this, for there is much ignorant worship in the wider world as well as in much that self-identifies as Christian. The mindless frenzy of idolatry is obvious, but what about much of neo-Pentecostalism and much of the Charismatic movement? Roger Ellsworth comments, “The fact we are moved by a tidal wave of emotion doesn’t mean we are hearing from the true God. The truth we must always keep in mind is that Satan is able to give people great emotional experiences.”
This is not an exclusively Charismatic challenge. Many churches spout conservative, home-spun wisdom and political positions rather than being led by the Scriptures. Scripture-rejecting churches are frequently led by how they feel. In such cases, they worship a mute and impotent deity, regardless of what they call him. This is pagan, heathen worship.
One major lesson from this passage, and the chapters that follow, is that we must test the spirits whether they are truly from God or whether they spout the lies of an ultimately mute false god (1 John 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 5:19–20).
The word “spiritual gifts” translates a word used 21 times in the New Testament, fifteen of which are found in 1 Corinthians. The word “gifts” is supplied. The translators infer that, since spiritual gifts is a major theme of this section, they can supply the word “gifts” here. That might be the case, but “spiritual persons” would fit the context equally well. The major problem Paul addresses in these three chapters is that of self-centred spirituality. Many in the Corinthian church seem to have missed the point of the ministry of the Holy Spirit: to point the church to the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 3).
Unfortunately, personal show-casing rather than serving one another was the (dis)order of the day. As they gathered for corporate worship, some were displaying their gifts rather than using them to serve the body of Christ. Others were counterfeiting the gifts because they wanted to get in on the “glory.” Still others were selfishly exercising their gifts without any self-control. They were worshipping ignorantly and this needed to be corrected. It still does.
Brothers and sisters we too need to beware of worshipping self-centredly. We need to beware of thoughtlessly gathering for corporate worship. We need to beware of thoughtlessly using our gifts. We need to beware of ignoring the Holy Spirit in the church! This leads logically to the next point.
Intelligent Worship
Next, Paul urges his readers to intelligent worship: “Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (v. 3).
The opposite of ignorance is intelligence. Rather than being “without knowledge,” the intelligent have knowledge. And they act like it. This is what Paul desired for this church. It is the kind of worship God expected (John 4:24). Here, Paul admonishes them that true, intelligent worship takes place where the lordship of Jesus Christ is central. True, intelligent spirituality is revealed by both saying and showing that Jesus Christ is Lord. In the words of Schreiner, “The discussion of spiritual gifts begins with the baseline: the lordship of Christ (12:1–3). Spiritual experiences are not self-validating.” True spirituality is Christ-centred and cross-shaped.
In one of the most difficult interpretive challenges in this passage, Paul says that he wants them to “understand [be intelligent] that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says, ‘Jesus is accursed!’” What does he mean by this?
Paul may be speaking hypothetically to draw a contrast with what the Spirit “says.” Some have suggested that some church members were under the delusion of evil spirits and unwittingly cursing Jesus when they spoke in tongues. That is hard to believe for several reasons, not the least that, if this were the case, then certainly Paul would have stronger words then simply mentioning it in passing.
Rather, a better explanation is that Paul is referring to their former pagan worship (v. 1) in which they mindlessly, ignorantly, irrationally said things inspired by perhaps evil spirits. He contrasts that with what they are now saying—“Jesus is Lord”—by the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, Paul is contrasting spurious spirituality with scriptural, Spirit-filled spirituality! As Leon Morris says, “Paul lays down his first point that the genuinely spiritual man is to be known by his utterances.”
Perhaps the most ignorant, unintelligent thing anyone could ever say is “Jesus be damned.” Think of those who cried for his death. When the Jewish crowd said, “Away with this man!” and, “We have no king but Caesar!” and, “Crucify him!” they were saying, “Let Jesus be accursed and let everyone see it as he hangs on a tree” (Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:23). How diabolically and damningly ignorant!
Remember that those doing so were very religious people. After all, they were swelling the population of Jerusalem during the primary religious feast: Passover. They were religious, yet in rebellion. They were religious but clueless. They were religious but as blind and deaf as idolators.
Repeatedly, the prophets admonished the Jews that they were idolators and as deaf and mute and blind as the wooden statues (Isaiah 29:13). They were led about by the lifeless, for they themselves were spiritually lifeless. And even though they spoke about Yahweh and the temple and the Torah, nevertheless their worship was useless. They worshipped ignorantly. Whether from a Jewish or Gentile background, Paul is saying that those without the Spirit of God may be zealous in their religion, yet they are clueless.
Those with the Spirit of God are alone able to worship intelligently, for only they can truly believe and thus say, “Jesus is Lord.” This confession is a mark of true spirituality. This confession is a mark of Spirit-filled intelligent worship.
“Jesus is Lord” was probably an early church confession that the church devotedly said as they gathered and probably as they greeted one another. By God’s grace, mediated by the Holy Spirit, their eyes had been opened and they had turned from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
Of course, Paul is not saying that it is impossible to mouth the words, “Jesus is Lord”. An African Grey can be taught to do this. He is saying is that, apart from the sovereign and saving work of the Holy Spirit, no one can truly say this. Apart from his regenerating work, no one will truly see and savour Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. We are doomed to be “led about” by and to mute idols of our own making unless the Spirit of God gives us new life. “Confessing Jesus as Lord is not the product of human insight, nor does it derive from human will. On the contrary, it represents the activity of the Holy Spirit, who so works in human beings that they recognize Jesus’ lordship” (Schreiner).
The word of God will be mute to us unless the Spirit of God opens our eyes to behold wonderful things out of his word (Psalm 119:18). Worship will be boring and unintelligible unless the Spirit of God removes our heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh. Corporate worship will be lifeless unless the Spirit of God breathes on the dry bones of our lifeless soul. And church life will be a drudgery at best, or a selfish engagement at worst.
What are the implications of the confession, “Jesus is Lord”?
The confession implies that we have been persuade by the Spirit of God that our ultimate allegiance is to Jesus Christ. Caesar is not Lord. Career is not Lord. Money and matter are not Lord. Reputation is not Lord. Achievement in education is not Lord. Family is not Lord. No person is Lord.
The confession implies that the Spirit of God has convicted and convinced us that Jesus Christ is worth fully living for and, if need be, to die for (see Mark 8:31–33).
The confession implies that the same Spirit of God makes every Christian spiritual. This is pertinent to the context. Paul wants the church to put two and two together concluding that, since it is only by the Holy Spirit that we can say, “Jesus is Lord,” all those who do so have the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9). There is no place for one-upmanship. No Christian has more of the Holy Spirit than another. There is spiritual equality, though, as we will see, there is also spiritual diversity.
The confession implies that the Spirit of God unites all who confess, “Jesus is Lord!” Therefore, we will all be looking and pulling in the same direction of devotion.
We can conclude that intelligent worship commences with the Spirit’s conversion of our hearts, wills, and minds. The most intelligent belief is that Jesus Christ is Lord. The most intelligent use of one’s life is to serve Jesus Christ who is Lord. The most intelligent stewardship of our corporate gathering is to remind one another that Jesus is Lord. When we do, then our worship will be reverently intentional.
Instructive Worship
Finally, Paul begins to offer some instructions for worship, which he will continue to do through chapter 14: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone” (vv. 4–6).
I could also have titled this point “Introducing Worship,” for Paul is commencing a larger section in which he will instruct the church about a right attitude towards the exercise of their spiritual gifts, and then some specifics about right conduct and actions in corporate worship (chapters 13–14). But here he introduces this theme by highlighting the trinitarian nature of spirituality and hence of corporate worship. If worship will be reformed in accordance with God’s word, it must be trinitarian.
By “trinitarian,” I mean that the Christian worships God who is one and who exists in three persons. These verses are akin to the Old Testament Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4–6: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.” Paul’s “Shema” needed to be on the heart of the Corinthian church, as it needs to be on ours. God’s triunity is the key to our unity.
Diversity in Unity
As Paul begins to instruct the church about the nature and necessity of spiritual gifts, he tells them to remember that there is diversity of gifts. He uses the word “variety” three times in these three verses, a theme to which he will return repeatedly in what follows. He also repeats the word “same” three times—the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God.
This back and forth between “variety” and “same” is meant to drive home the reality that, though there is diversity in the church, there is also unity. Essentially, “different gifts, same God,” “varied differences, one God.” This is precisely the nature of the Trinity.
Each person of the Trinity is unique in his works, yet they are the same in their goal. Each person is different in their manifestation, yet the same in being God. Though there is diversity in the Trinity, there is unity of purpose and love, which is precisely what corporate worship is to reflect. Let’s look at and see.
The Spirit’s Gifts
The Holy Spirit is the one who distributes gifts to the church. A sample of these will be enumerated later (vv. 8–11). A couple of things need to be noted.
First, they are gifts. It seems that some in the Corinthian church were proud of their “spirituals” (v. 1), boasting in their “spiritual dynamic.” But here Paul reminds them that, whatever abilities they have are not merited by them but are rather graciously and sovereignly given to them by the Holy Spirit. In other words, don’t boast in what you have been given. If the Spirit of God did not give to you, you would not have it. Give credit where credit is due.
Second, the Holy Spirit does not distribute his gifts so we can compete with one another but rather so we will complement one another for the glory of God. Again, Morris is helpful: “The Spirit does not fight against himself. The gifts he gives to one are to set forward the same divine purpose as the different gifts he gives to another.”
The Son’s Service
The Lord Jesus, of course, is intimately related in the giving of these gifts. In Ephesians 4, we read that he gave gifts to the church at his ascension (most likely given to the Holy Spirit who then distributes as he wills [v. 11]). These gifts are for the purpose of serving him. There are different ways to serve the Lord, yet we all serve the same Lord.
Consider that we serve the same Lord. If we use our gifts to serve him, we will find ourselves in greater unity. In this sense, each of us called to fulltime ministry.
The Father’s Power
Finally, regardless of our varied gifts, regardless of our varied spheres of service, each of us can only use our gifts effectively as our “same God empowers them all in everyone.” This is a lovely and encouraging truth!
God does not have favourites. He loves his children and delights to empower them. The word Paul uses here is the same he uses in Ephesians 1:20 to describe the powerful work of the Father in raising Jesus from the dead and seating him at his right hand. This power is available to everyone in God’s family and hence everyone who is spiritual—who has the Spirit of Christ. And who are those? The ones who can truly say, “Jesus is Lord.” Roger Ellsworth summarises well:
God’s people do not all possess the same gifts. Their unity lies not in their gifts but in their God! No matter what our gifts, we may rest assured they are distributed by the Spirit for the service of the Lord as appointed and energized by the Father.
Brothers and sisters, let us devote ourselves to serving the Lord Jesus Christ by the gifts that have been bestowed upon us by the triune God, sovereignly distributed by the Holy Spirit. In other words, let us not merely say, “Jesus is Lord,” but let us show that Jesus is Lord. Both saying and showing his lordship is the mark of true spirituality and is essential as we reform our worship.
Saved by the gospel, let us seek grace from our triune God to effectively steward his gifts for his glory.
AMEN