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. 

Venerating Mary Undermines Worshiping God

Answering a question on Quora:

How does our veneration of Mary and the saints relate to our worship of God?

According to Merriam-Webster:

Definition of WORSHIP

1: to honor or show reverence for as a divine being or supernatural power

2: to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion

Definition of VENERATE

1: to regard with reverential respect or with admiring deference

2: to honor (an icon, a relic, etc.) with a ritual act of devotion

As you can see, both worship and veneration involve reverence, respect, honor, and devotion. The only difference is the object of veneration or devotion. So they’re the same thing; people just use one word for God and a different word for saints such as Mary.

In other words, an institution plays word games when it says, “We don’t worship Mary or saints, we venerate them.”

The Catholic institution claims Mary is a “co-mediatrix” and “co-redemptrix” with God the Son, placing her on the same level, with regard to mediation and redemption, with the infinite God the Son. To be precise, although the Roman Catholic Church does not officially endorse such teachings, it allows them, and large segments of the institution actively defend and promote them.

On the other hand, the Bible says, “For there is one God, one mediator also between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all…” (1 Timothy 2:5.) Christ plus Mary = 2, not 1. So, logically, if there is one Mediator, God the Son, then depending on another mediator takes away from the reverence, respect, honor, and devotion due to the One.

As infinite God the Son, Christ is omnipresent and omniscient. As such, He can be aware of thousands of simultaneous prayers spread across Earth’s surface (and perhaps a few in orbit). But how can any mere human possess that omnipresent awareness and multi-process thousands or millions of simultaneous voices?

One priest explained to me that people see God as stern and unsympathetic, so they turn to Mary to intercede with Christ. This implies that Mary is more loving and sympathetic than Christ, and therefore quicker to intercede for us. Put another way, Mary’s love and sympathy is greater than God’s, or God is inferior to Mary. Pause for a moment and re-read that.

The scriptures, on the other hand, says Jesus is our high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, “One who has been tempted in all things as we are” (Hebrews 4:15), and is “able to save forever those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Closer to the hearts of those who become biblical Christians God’s way, “the [Holy] Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and… He intercedes for the saints (all believers) according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26–27).

So, rather than chanting mindlessly and praying to saints, we are commanded by God to “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). We do not know that saints in heaven hear us, let alone individually. However, we do know that the brother or sister we ask for prayer hears us, that Christ hears us, and that the Holy Spirit not only hears us, but also corrects our prayers. So, what does it say about our reverence, respect, honor, and devotion to God when we disobey the command to come directly to Him and instead give it to His creatures?

The Catholic institution says that Mary reigns with Christ in heaven. However, the scriptures say that Christ shares God’s own glory and sits on the right side of God’s throne (Hebrews 8:11, Hebrews 12:2), and the LORD (YHWH) says “I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8). Can we say of Mary,

“Yours, LORD, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and on the earth; Yours is the dominion, LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all“ (1 Chronicles 29:11)?

If a Catholic usurped titles, roles, and attributes of the Pope, you could rightly call it irreverence, disrespect, dishonor, and disloyalty. And if I usurped a title, role, or attribute of God such as Mediator, Redeemer, or omnipresence, you could rightly call it irreverence, disrespect, dishonor, and disloyalty — in short, blasphemy.

So practices of “veneration” such as creating and servicing images of saints, praying to them, and taking time away from worshiping God not only minimizes worship of God, but actually insults Him.

(Dear Catholic: I don’t hate you. I want better for you. But that requires following the gospel, which Rome has severely distorted. Biblical grace is a “gift” to be received as a free, once-for-all gift direct from God. It is not something earned because anything earned is no longer a gift. Unfortunately, that’s out of scope here.)

Copyright 2021 Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use. Please give credit where credit is due.

Can the Sin of ____ Be Forgiven?

The good news is that, it can be forgiven. Jesus said, “And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. (Matthew 12:31) This may not mean you are forgiven. It means you can be forgiven. Since you can be forgiven, you probably want to know more about that.

Let’s look closer. Why were you confused? There are three probable causes. First, you may be too new in faith to have much knowledge. That is understandable, as long as you determine to learn so you won’t be easily fooled again. Second, you may have had faith for a while but never bothered to do your homework. In this case, the sin of allowing yourself to remain ignorant can be forgiven, but you still bear the consequences. Third, you remain outside the faith. You may be close to conversion or far from it, but the result is the same.

If you are “in the faith,” then God, as Judge, has already forgiven you. (As loving Father, though, He may still need to correct you.) If not “in the faith,” then it is wise to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12) and “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.” (2 Corinthians 13:5) There are three topics in the test.

The first test is what you believe about yourself. The second is what you believe about God. The third is whether you put your trust in God.

You know you need forgiveness, so I will only expand on that point for the sake of other readers. Atheists (there is nobody to forgive and nothing needs forgiveness) and Universalists (everybody is already forgiven) think they need no forgiveness. For this answer, let’s ignore them.

The next group thinks they have a free pass to heaven just because Grandpa was a preacher or because they can trace their genealogy back to Judah, son of Israel, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. Be we do not inherit good deeds; we answer for our own thoughts and actions. Someone has said, “God has no grandchildren.”

A related group knows that right and wrong exists, but they don’t think they are bad. They think the good they do outweighs the bad they’ve done. But will that work in court? If you are on trial for shoplifting, do you think the judge will acquit you just because you volunteer at the food kitchen? It doesn’t work that way! We owe it to God to do right. If we fall behind and use the July rent payment to pay for June, we still owe for July. So we cannot “do good,” which we owe to our Creator, to pay for our sins.

Well, I keep the Ten Commandments, some say. But God gave the Commandments (there are actually over 600 — not that I counted) not to give us a standard by which to justify ourselves, but to show that we are on the “bad” side of the ledger. Everybody breaks the Commandments. Everybody. Because the closer you look, the more sub sections pop out.

For example, Jesus said, “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder…’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell…. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart…. everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” *Matthew 5:21-32).

Paul, an apostle of Christ, wrote that nobody will be justified in God’s sight by keeping the Commandments (also called the Law); because the purpose of the Law was to make us aware of sin and shut the mouth of every person who would boast of their own righteousness. (Romans 3:19-20) The Law was a schoolmaster whose purpose was to make us aware of our need and bring us to reliance on God (Galatians 3:24).

So if we cannot be good enough, can we be saved from hell? Yes, if we let go of self-righteousness and let God, our Judge, pay the penalty that we cannot afford to pay. That is where the Cross comes in. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). Notice in this verse that Christ suffered once, not continuously or in every mass, as a certain megachurch tell us. He suffered once for all of our sins, not for just the ones we’ve repented from. There are so many that we don’t even realize we’re committing! He took our punishment that we deserved. And He did it to bring us to God. As a perfect, omnipotent Shepherd, He brings His flock, ALL His flock, home.

Human pride makes us want to contribute to our justification through good works, but our works and God’s gift are mutually exclusive. You cannot earn a gift. If you receive a gift and then work to complete it or to retain it, then it turns from a gift into wages. That insults the Giver. The hardest part of the test for many is letting God give the gift freely. Baptism is good, but that cannot be part of receiving the gift. Joining a church (a bible-teaching church) is good, but that is not part of receiving the gift.

The only thing you can do to receive the gift is, knowing that you need it, submit to receiving it.

Many people say the words, but not from their hearts. Years back, because so many people had shallow, false conversions, it became popular to add, “you must make Jesus the Lord of your life.” That is a good thing, and He is Lord regardless; but that is not what the Bible commands for conversion. It is popular now to add, “you must repent of your sins.” That is more complicated. A common error includes reforming yourself as part of repentance. But repentance simply means changing your mind and your heart. In fact, we must repent from the idea that we can reform ourselves. We need God’s help to do that. So we do not reform to receive the gift; we reform afterwards, because we have received the gift.

I will finish with one last element of the test. Who is God? Many ideas have sprung up in the last 2,000 years to distract us from God. I will not describe them all but will leave it to you to discover the evidence in the Bible for yourself. i will just describe God for you.

God created the heavens and the earth. (Whether He did so less than 10,000 years ago, did it in phases, or did it billions of years ago, I don’t know, and I am comfortable not knowing.) Physics tells us that creative power over matter and energy implies creative power over time and space, as well. When you consider that God knows the future, it makes sense that he exists before, outside of, or above time. As Creator of time, God entered His creation to reveal Himself and experience it as three Persons. One united God, three distinct (yet united) Persons, each fully God, all-powerful, omnipresent, all-knowing, holy, righteous, relational, and loving.

The three Persons have distinct roles. One identifies Himself as the Father. The second identifies Himself as the Son. And the third identifies Himself as the Holy Spirit. The three roles both share and divide the labor of creation, redemption, and restoration, and they teach us by example, so there is purpose to it.

I said God is love, and love is relational. A unitary god such as that of the Watchtower, Islam, and certain Pentecostal churches, had nobody to relate to before creation. So that god had an unmet need for fellowship. Islam says, “Allah is great,” but the triune God who had no such need is greater. Moreover, it is an inferior god who forgives without justice being fulfilled, whose holiness can tolerate unredeemed sin, and whose love cannot bring him to redeem.

The only sin that cannot be forgiven is what Jesus called “blasphemy against the Spirit.” Blasphemy against the Spirit had a specific meaning and a generalized principle. The Jews had accused Jesus of performing miracles using the devil’s power. Since the Holy Spirit supplied the power in Jesus’ miracles, they were saying the Holy Spirit was the devil. God takes blasphemy personally!

The principle is broader. The Holy Spirit makes us aware of our sins and draws us toward trusting Christ for redemption. If we resist that drawing, then we repeat the Jews’ rejection of the Holy Spirit. Since that means we will not repent and be converted, we will never receive forgiveness, not only for blaspheming the Holy Spirit, but for any sins.

If you have seen yourself as lost to sin, as God sees, then you can entrust yourself to His provision for your redemption and receive that gift and the many blessings that come with it; and He does not take back His gifts.

Where the Popes and Cardinals Are in the Bible

The Short Answer

The best answer is simply that the Bible says nothing positive about popes and cardinals. It doesn’t take many words to point out an absence of evidence. I will require many words, however, because it is not so simple to refute rationalizations for violating what the scriptures do say.

Titles Are Not "Wrong"

In a hierarchy, it is desirable to give titles to different levels. For example, in a corporation, you might have a president, several vice presidents, managers, and supervisors. Even Moses, upon the advice of his father-in-law, appointed levels of supervision. The New Testament has words such as deacon, elder, shepherd, and bishop, and they are used descriptively rather than as titles. Man focuses on titles, but God focuses on the work.

Industry, especially the software industry, is returning to the model of allowing people to self-organize, at least at the bottom levels, because they know what needs to be done and how best to accomplish it. This trend is called “Agile” and helps produce more value sooner, especially in changing environments. 

Similarly, the New Testament is intentionally ambiguous so that creating offices such as Pastor, Bishop, and Cardinal is left to individual churches. Not every model, such as independent churches versus worldwide denominations, fits every political and cultural environment. So the fact that the scriptures do not spell out a title is not enough reason to reject it.

The Unbiblical Title and Role of Pope 

The title of Pope, however, is strictly anti-biblical — and worse. Jesus said, Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. (Matthew 23:9) One rule of Bible interpretation is, if the plain sense makes good sense, any other sense is probably nonsense.  It is not only anti-biblical to call a priest Father, but also to call a man Pope.

Further explanation ought to be unnecessary, but I anticipate heated objections, so I’ll elaborate.

When we consider the title, Pope, we must first recognize that it comes from Greek papas, father. This is echoed in another title of the pope, Holy Father. In Mark 10:18, Jesus said, Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 

There are many similar statements with the term holy, such as 1 Samuel 2:2, There is no one holy like the LORD, Indeed, there is no one besides You, Nor is there any rock like our God. Goodness and holiness can be ascribed to God alone. Peter would have been appalled at being called Father or Holy Father.

Do you see a trend, yet? 

In John (see 14:16, 14:26, 15:26, and 16:7), Jesus gave a descriptive title to God the Holy Spirit: Paraclete, which has the meanings of comforter and advocate. He described the Paraclete (Holy Spirit) as coming in His place, to be His vicarious Presence. That meets the definition of Vicar of Christ (substitute for Christ). 

Catholicism puts these usurped titles into action by placing its “Fathers” between believers and God, discouraging non-clergy from fully enjoying the personal relationship that God desires to have with his children. All three members of the Triune God fulfill the relationship without human interference:

• The Son -- He [God the Son] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:25
  
• The Spirit -- In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to [the will of] God. Romans 8:26–27
  
• The Father -- Let us then approach God's [the Father’s] throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16

The system instead inserts itself between people and God, encouraging people to bring their prayers to its priests, to believers in heaven, and to angels — as though they had the omnipresence and omniscience that allows God to receive all prayers.

No First Pope

Before closing, one more issue, and a tangent, need addressing. You will observe circular reasoning that Peter was the first pope, so the papal office is legitimate, so the first pope was Peter. 

First, nobody called Peter a pope until hundreds of years later. The proof text, Matthew 16:15–19, used by Catholic teachers, simply does not call him pope, and it does not give him the extent of authority they claim.

Christ Is the Rock

The rock on which Christ said He would build His church is Peter’s confession. You can see Peter as being the rock only if you are biased to see it that way. In the Greek, Peter is masculine gender petros whereas rock is feminine gender petra. A petros is a stone whereas a petra is a monolith. If Jesus had meant Peter was the rock, He would have used the same word, saying You are Peter (petros) and on this rock (petros) I will build my church, not on this rock (petra). 

To the contrary, the Bible gives the title of Rock to God the Son, as in 1 Corinthians 10:4, that rock was Christ, and as in 1 Samuel 2:2 (above). Even Peter himself identified Christ as the Rock toward the end of 1 Peter 2:4–8, and anyone who grasps biblical metaphor can understand that “rock,” Christ, extends to the recognition of whom Christ is — the core of the gospel. Again, Catholic teaching misapplies a title that belongs to God alone to a human.

Keys to the Kingdom Fulfilled in Acts

Catholic teaching says that the keys to the kingdom and the power to bind and loose refer to total authority over the church. That is inconsistent with the rest of the New Testament. Act 1:8, the theme verse of that book, declares, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  Acts describes the expansion of “God’s people” from the disciples, to Jews in Jerusalem, to Judeans, to Samarians, to the gentiles. Peter was present for each of those expansions, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit were opened up to those concentric groups through him. 

However, Peter did not remain at the head of the church’s earthly hierarchy, as it had another president long before Peter left the scene (Acts chapters 15 and 21).

Catholic Bishops are Unqualified

Second, the Catholic explanation avoids the apostle’s description of a bishop’s qualifications. The Catholic will say that the bishop is married to the church, but Titus 1:4–9 specifically speaks of not only a wife, but also children. Indeed, Paul pointed out how Peter, Jesus’ brothers James and Jude, and other apostles each had wives, and had a right to have wives, in 1 Corinthians 9:5. Paul clearly teaches that God makes some people for marriage and others for single lives. Imposing celibacy on all clergy is strictly anti-biblical.

On a metaphorical level, it violates common sense for the church (the body of all believers) to take multiple human husbands when it is already the future Bride of Christ. (Ephesians 5:25-27, Revelation 19:7-9) Likewise, it makes no sense for the married apostles to have both earthly and corporate wives. Thus, the Catholic priesthood usurps yet another title and role of God, that of divine Husband.

The Sin of Papal Veneration

Catholicism gives to its chief the titles and roles of Holy, Holy Father, Pope (papas), Paraclete, Vicar of Christ, intercessor, husband of the church. It delegates those roles and titles, in reduced form, to its local representatives. These titles all belong to God. Catholic priests may have been taught that God delegates these to them, but the claims contradict the Bible. I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images. Isaiah 42:8 Usurping the titles and roles of God is a severe form of blasphemy.  

Over a millennium of rationalizing does not make the rationalizing any less sophistic. It is worth considering whether allegiance to an organization that creates new standards (traditions that morph with the culture) in order to justify contradicting the unchanging original standard (the scriptures) is the right choice.