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Spiritual Gifts. Volume 1
What is to effect this unity, but the gifts that were given for this very
purpose?
From considerations like these, it is evident that the perfect state of
the church here predicted is still in the future; consequently these gifts
have not yet accomplished their end. This letter to the Ephesians was
written in A.D. 64, about two years before Paul told Timothy that he
was ready to be offered, and the time of his departure was at hand. The
seeds of the apostasy were now germinating in the church, for Paul
had said ten years before, in his second letter to the Thessalonians,
“The mystery of iniquity doth already work.” Grievous wolves were
now about to enter in, not sparing the flock. The church was not then
rising and advancing to that perfection in unity contemplated in the
text, but was about to be torn by factions, and distracted by divisions.
The apostle knew this; consequently he must have looked beyond the
great apostasy, to the period of the gathering of the remnant of God’s
people, when he said, “till we all come into the unity of the faith.”
[14]
Hence the gifts that were set in the church have not yet served out their
time.
1 Thessalonians 5:19-21
. “Quench not the spirit. Despise not
prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”
In this epistle the apostle introduces the subject of the second
coming of the Lord. He then describes the state of the unbelieving
world at that time---saying, “peace and safety”, when the day of the
Lord is about to burst upon them, and sudden destruction come upon
them as a thief in the night. He then exhorts the church, in view of these
things, to keep awake, watch and be sober. Among the exhortations
that follow are the words we have quoted, “quench not the Spirit,” &C.
Some may think that these three verses are completely detached from
each other in sense; but they have a natural connection in the order
in which they stand. The person who quenches the Spirit will be left
to despise prophesyings, which are the legitimate fruit of the Spirit,
“I will pour out My Spirit, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy.”
Joel 2:28
. The expression, “prove all things,” is limited to
the subject of discourse---prophesyings---and we are to try the spirits
by the tests which he has given us in his word. Spiritual deceptions
and false prophesyings abound at the present time; and doubtless this
text has a special application here. But, mark, the apostle does not say,
reject all things; but, prove all things; hold fast that which is good.