Holy Spirit's Gifts, Common Good, and Authenticity

Biblogic Series: 1 Corinthians 12:7

Verse 7

Chapter 12

The Spirit manifests Himself through spiritual gifts given to all believers. 1 Corinthians 12:7

Only a minority of believers experience an alleged “second blessing” whereby they receive spiritual gifts.

• If the consignment of spiritual gifts were a second blessing conferred on only some, then the second blessing and the gifts it conveys would not be given to all believers.
• This would contradict the Holy Spirit’s words in the scriptures.
• Consigning spiritual gifts to all believers would require consignment at the time of conversion.
• If the Spirit speaks truth through the scriptures, then the Spirit must consign spiritual gifts at the time of conversion. 

The manifestation of the Spirit through spiritual gifts serves the common good of the body of Christ. 

• “Common good” implies that exercising spiritual gifts serves multiple members, not just the person exercising a gift. 
• Privately exercising a gift to “edify” oneself does not serve the common good. 
• Therefore, private exercise abuses the gift by violating its purpose.
• Privacy merely emphasizes that that particular usage does not edify others. Therefore, anybody exercising a spiritual gift for their own edification abuses the gift.
• One apparent exception might be gifts required for teaching, exhortation, and encouragement to build oneself up in knowledge. However, the end goal of such an exercise is -- obviously! -- to prepare oneself for teaching, exhortation, and encouragement. Knowledge for its own sake puffs up the ego and leads to injuring fellow believers (1 Corinthians 8:1). So it holds that exercising a spiritual gift for one's own edification is a selfish abuse of the gift.

Any imitation of a spiritual gift attempts to imitate the Holy Spirit, Himself.

• Any counterfeit manifestation of the Holy Spirit would constitute "bearing false witness" about God.
• Any counterfeit manifestation of the Holy Spirit that conveys error (for example, an unbiblical teaching or a prophecy that goes unfulfilled) assigns the error to the Spirit. 
• Assigning error to God the Holy Spirit through counterfeit manifestations is a form of blasphemy. 
• Counterfeit prophecies in the Holy Spirit's name render the speaker a blasphemer and a false prophet. Due to the blasphemy and the damage done by misleading hearers, the sin of counterfeiting this gift of the Spirit was dealt with very severely in the Mosaic Law. 

Copyright 2021, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, provided that this notice and bibliographic citation accompany the article.