Twenty-eight years later in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul set
before that church a formal argument on the question. He says (
1
Corinthians 12:1
), “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would
not have you ignorant”—so important did he deem it that this subject
should be understood in the Christian church. After stating that though
the Spirit is one it has diversities of operation, and explaining what
those diversities are, he introduces the figure of the human body, with
its various members, to show how the church is constituted with its
different offices and gifts. And as the body has its various members,
each having its
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particular office to fill, and all working together in unity of purpose
to constitute one harmonious whole, so the Spirit was to operate
through various channels in the church to constitute a perfect religious
body. Paul then continues in these words: “And God hath set some in
the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after
that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of
tongues.”
The declaration that God hath set some in the church, etc., implies
something more than that the way was left open for the gifts to appear
if circumstances should chance to favor. It rather signifies that they
were to be permanent parts of the true spiritual constitution of the
church, and that if these were not in active operation the church would
be in the condition of a human body, some of whose members had,
through accident or disease, become crippled and helpless. Having
once been set in the church, there these gifts must remain until they
are formally removed. But there is no record that they ever have been
removed
.
Five years later the same apostle writes to the Ephesians relative to
the same gifts, plainly stating their object, and thus showing indirectly
that they must continue till that object is accomplished. He says
(
Ephesians 4:8, 11-13
): “Wherefore He saith, when He ascended up
on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.... And He
gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and
some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all
come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ.”