The Gifts of the Body, Part 3

Selected Scriptures

  
     Let's bow in the word of prayer.  Father, we thank you tonight for amazing grace, for the simple message of that song.  And oh Lord, how great it is to know that we haven't even begun to experience what You've prepared for us.  For all eternity will live and bask in the glory of full grace.  Thank you, Lord, for all that You mean to us.  And Lord, as we look at the Word tonight, may we speak as one who speaks the oracles of God.  May our hearts be sensitive and may we be lead by the Spirit of God.  May He be our teacher.  We pray in Christ's name.  Amen.
 
1 Corinthians Chapter 12, tonight's message is the third message in the subject of the gifts of the body.  We are in a series, a series which has not been planned, but which has just kept happening week by week, one of those unplanned things that obviously the Lord had planned all along.  We are in the third message on the gifts of the body.
 
We talked about the body of Christ, the witness of the body, and the gifts of the body.  We've been studying the body of Christ and how it is to function in unity and in love.  And those are the two key words to understanding the body of Christ.  In unity and in love.  And that if it functions in unity and love it will be built up.  It will be matured.  It will be edifying.  And by the body of Christ, we mean all Christians loving and serving one another are built up.  And when we are built up into that kind of oneness and that kind of love, then our witness to the world will be effective.  That's what Jesus meant when He said, "I pray that they may be one that the world may know that the Father has sent me." 
 
Our witness depends upon unity and love.  Now, in order for the body to be built up that it might witness, God has given the body certain things.  First of all, He has given certain gifted men, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.  He has also not only given certain gifted men, but He has given certain grace gifts or spiritual gifts to every one of the believers.
 
And we've been talking about these gifts and through these gifts to every believer, the Holy Spirit manifests Himself to the whole body.  Now, if you're getting in on the tail end, I would encourage you to get the tapes and the sheets that we've been passing out in past weeks so you know where we are because this is an absolutely critical subject.
 
Now, we've been talking then about the gifts through which the Spirit ministers to the body.  So God has given two things to the body of Christ, gifted men, specially called to be apostles, prophets, they were foundational ministries and have ceased.  Then followed by evangelists, teacher, and preacher.  Not only gifted men, but gifts and each of the believers have certain gifts by which they minister to the other believers to bring a full maturity to the entire body. 
 
Now, we have been studying these gifts and we've also been studying the principles by which the gifts function.  We have seen clearly how these gifts compliment each other and how they result in a body that is edifying.  We have also seen that each of these gifts was complete and full in Christ Himself.  And that we as a body are to be the continuation of the life of Christ so that God has given us every basic gift that Christ Himself had in order that we might be fully the continuation of the life of Christ.
 
Now, for a healthy oneness then, which means a healthy witness, for a real unity of love, for a real positive ministry, we must then minister our gifts to one another that we might be built up.  If we do not minister the body is maimed, the body is crippled, some members are not functioning and the others have to compensate and the whole body of Christ limps along.  And incidentally, that's exactly what the case is now.
 
And as a result of a maimed, crippled, disjointed, disconnected body, we stand amidst the ruins of a broken testimony in the world.  The world cannot see our testimony because our unity is the criterion and our love.  And since unity and love isn't obvious in the body of Christ, the world has not the correct standards by which to judge us.
 
Now, we have tried in previous messages then, consequently to say three things.  Number one, the body needs to be one and to love.  Number two, gifts make it so.  Number three, find your gift and use it.  That's basically what we've been saying.  In order for the body to function, there has to be unity in love, gifts make unity and love possible, find your gift, discover it by prayer and the filling of the Holy Spirit and use your gift.
 
When all of us operate our gifts in the energy of the Spirit, then we build up each other to full maturity the whole body becomes mature and our witness and testimony is powerful.  Now specifically, we have begun to enumerate the gifts that are listed in 1 Corinthians 12 and also in Romans 12.
 
Last time we talked about the permanent gifts.  We said there are two categories of gifts, permanent and temporary.  The permanent gifts were to build up the body and still are to build up the body.  The temporary gifts were to confirm the word of the apostles and prophets and have ceased with the ceasing of apostles and prophets. 
 
Now since last week we covered all of the permanent gifts that leaves for us to cover tonight the temporary gifts which were not designed for the edification of the body as we shall see, but they were designed for confirming the testimony of the apostles and prophets that indeed and in fact they were declaring the Word of God.
 
Now, there are four of these gifts listed in scripture.  They have no continuing role in the body.  The existed for the apostolic era and were designed for unbelievers, not believers in order that unbelievers might be convinced by these miracles that indeed the Word of God was being spoken by the mouths of the apostles and the prophets of the early church.
 
The point is obvious.  If you had a whole lot of people speaking and no standard to judge them, nobody would know what to believe and so along with the truth speakers, along with the true apostles, and true prophets, there were certain miracles in order that people might be convinced that they, in fact, did speak the very word of God.
 
Now, I want to review this concept with you for just a moment and if you will look at...look at Mark Chapter 16.  That's the last Chapter in the book of Mark, and I'm not going to go into a critical study of whether this belongs.  Let's assume that it does.  And incidentally, there is new evidence on...in the basis of two new theses that have just been written with new manuscript evidence that the last part of Mark does belong in the text.  In case you don't know it didn't used to belong or some people didn't think it did, don't worry about it.  That's the problem for others.
 
But we notice in verse 17 and he says talking here to the 11 disciples.  He says, "In these signs shall follow those who believe in my name shall I cast out demons, speak with new tongues, take up serpents, if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt.  They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." 
 
Now, there you have some miracles that are going to attend the initial preaching of the apostles and the people who respond to the apostles in that initial phase of the church are going to see miracles happen.  Now you come down to verse 19, "So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them," that is to the 11, "He was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God."  That's the ascension.
 
Verse 20, "And they went forth," that's the early apostles, "and preached everywhere the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following.  Miracles then accompanied the apostles for the purpose of confirming," what, "the word."  That's what they were for.
 
Now look at 2  Corinthians Chapter 12 and verse 12.  It says this, now here's a very important verse.  "Truly the signs of an apostle."  Now notice signs are specifically belonging to apostles.  "The signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, wonders, and mighty deeds."  Dudamis, dynamite deeds.
 
Now, you'll notice there that signs belong to whom?  Apostles.  Signs of an apostle.  That is a specific designation for miracles.  One other verse Hebrews Chapter 2.  Hebrews Chapter 2 and verse 3, Hebrews 2:3 says this, now this again is very important.
 
"How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation," now listen to what happens after that, "which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord."  Wasn't the message of salvation initially spoken by Christ himself?  Of course it was.  "And was confirmed unto us by them that heard him."  And who would that be?  Apostles, "God also bearing them witness."  Who does them refer to?  The apostles.  "Both with signs and wonders and diverse miracles and," here's the key, "gifts of the Holy Spirit.
 
Now there you have it friends, apostles did miracles to confirm the word.  The miracles actually belong to apostles and here it says certain gifts of the Spirit were for the apostles.  Now when you come to 1 Corinthians 12, and you see the miraculous gifts, you know then that those are the gifts spoken as the signs and wonders and mighty deeds that belong to the apostles for the purpose of confirming the word and establishing it's veracity in the minds of people who had no other standard.
 
And you see this is in effect what Nicodemus meant when he came to Jesus and said, "I know you come from God because no man can," what, "do the things you do except God be with him."  In other words, the signs and miracles in Christ's life attested to the fact that he was speaking from God.  Same thing was true of the early apostles.  They had no other standard.  There was no written word of God.  There was not yet the accumulated standard of the New Testament, so signs became the confirmation of the word.
 
They were to ratify or establish the truth.  Now in the early church this was a necessary adjunct to the preaching and teaching of the apostles and the early prophets.  And incidentally these gifts were evidently often passed on from the apostles to other prophets of the early church by the laying on of hands.  There is no indication anywhere in the New Testament that anybody had these gifts other than by the laying on of hands of the apostles.
 
So it was a direct ministry geared to the apostles and initial prophets of the early church.  Warfield, one of the most brilliant, biblical scholars who ever lived says this.  "These miraculous gifts were part of the credentials of the apostles as the authoritative agents of God in founding the church.  Their function thus confined them to distinctly the apostolic church and they necessarily passed away with it."
 
Now certain passages specifically associate these miraculous gifts of the Spirit with the work of apostles.  And I'll give you a couple of illustrations.  One is in the 14^th Chapter of Acts.  Don't look it up, just write it down.  Acts 14, verse 3.  In Acts 14:3, "A long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord who gave testimony under the word of His grace."  Now here are some prophets and they're speaking the word of the Lord.  Now here's the key, "and the Lord gave testimony unto the word of His grace."  What was the Lord then doing?  Confirming the word, right?
 
How did He give testimony?  He granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.  You see?  In other words, the way that the Lord attested to the veracity of their word was by granting them signs and wonders.  Now these words incidentally describe the activity of Paul and Barnabas when they went to the city of Icononium during Paul's first missionary journey and at that point signs and wonders were granted to them as apostles and prophets to proclaim the truth of God and have it verified.  God literally verified by giving them the ability to do miracles.
 
There's one other verse that tells us the same thing and that's Roman 15:15.  Again, I'll just read it to you.  "Nevertheless brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort as putting you in mind because of the grace that is given to me of God.  That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles ministering the gospel of God that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.  I have therefore that of which I may glory in Jesus Christ and those things which pertained to God.  For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me."
 
In other words, I am only speaking what Christ tells me to speak Paul says.  Now watch this, "I will not dare speak any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient," watch this, "to make them obedient by word indeed," here's the key, "through mighty signs and wonders."
 
In other words, Paul says, my ministry is verified by signs and wonders.  This whole area of miracles had nothing to do with believers.  It had to confirm the word to unbelievers.  The whole point.  All right, so from those passages we learned that the purpose and function of the special miraculous gifts of the Spirit was to authenticate the apostles as true messengers from the true God and thus confirm the gospel of salvation in the mind of unbelievers.
 
Incidentally, as a satellite it also helped the believing ones to have more faith when they saw these same miracles.  Now, may I add very hastily that the church today no longer needs this kind of confirmation.  We do not need miracles as a standard by which we verify somebody's declaration.  We don't need somebody to stand up and preach and then do a miracle so we know he's telling the truth.  We have another standard and what is it?  The Word of God.  When somebody stands up to preach, we don't have to have a miracle.  We merely match him to the Word of God.  If he matches the Word of God, that is the standard.  If he does not, then we know that he is not a true teacher, but a false teacher.
 
We do not need confirming miracles, here is our confirmation right here.  We judge by the Word of God.  I'm reminded of Luke Chapter 16, verse 31 when the word says, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. "
 
If the Word of God as a standard isn't good enough, miracles aren't going to do it.  Now that the scripture is complete and you can't take away from it and you can't add to it, it's complete and total as God designed it to be.  It's our standard, we don't need confirming miracles.  They're irrelevant, immaterial, and extraneous.  Now let me add a footnote.  In the gifted men in the church, you know, there were gifts and there were gifted men.  The teacher, evangelists, and pastor which are the still existing ones, the apostle and prophet, as we saw last week, were foundation, right?  And you don't put the foundation on the 20^th floor, so they belong in our century.
 
But in the gifted men, there is today the continuing ministry that builds the body.  And there is no miraculous confirming gift ever mentioned in Ephesians 4 where the gifted men are mentioned.  No where in all of Paul's letters from Corinthians on, Corinthians is the only one that mentions these, in no other of Paul's letters does he say that pastors, evangelists, or teachers, should have any of these kind of gifts.
 
Now friend, if those gifts were the confirming gifts of the word and we still needed them, then they would belong to the men who preached the word, wouldn't they?  What would be the point of giving confirming gifts to people who weren't preachers.  It'd be pointless. 
 
If, in fact, these gifts still exist then they should belong to the greatest preachers and teachers in the world, because they are the men who are speaking and they are the men whose message has to be confirmed, is that not true?  And so if these gifts still exist, they would belong to gifted Bible teachers, not to people who are way out in left field conducting strange emotionalism under a tent.
 
And you can look the world across and you will not find a single really gifted Bible teacher in the mainstream of dispensational premillenial theology who has anything to do with any of these kind of gifts.  There are none.  In fact, there is total unanimity of agreement that these gifts do not belong to our day.
 
They were always confirming gifts for unbelievers to verify the word.  Consequently if they were today existing they wouldn't belong to women in the first place, because women are supposed to keep silence in the church.  And that's in 1 Corinthians 14 and it refers to tongues.  And friends if that took place, 95% of movement would end.  And so the confirming gifts then if they were legitimate gifts would belong to great Bible teachers on the contrary they do not.
 
They are not the ones who are self-styled healers or miracle workers.  Not at all.  So to include our introduction, we've seen that the sign gifts were for the apostolic era and when the apostles and profits use them they were to confirm the word and when the apostles and prophets passed away so did the need for confirmation because the Bible then became the standard.  Those gifts were never designed any time to belong to the edification of the body.  They aren't a part of it at all. 
 
All right, now let's look at the four specific temporary signed gifts.  And they're for us in verse 10 and some repeated in verse 28.  You can look at them.  Number one is the gift of miracles.  Verse 10, "To another the working of miracles." 
 
Now, what is the gift of miracles?  We want to talk about it for just a moment.  To say that miracles have ceased would be untrue and I want to hasten to say that.  When I say the gift of miracles has ceased, I do not mean God doesn't do miracles.  God is the God of miracles.  God's doing miracles today all over the place.  I don't think one day goes by that we don't see God working a miracle in our own lives.  Miracles are happening all around us.  The greatest miracle God ever did was take a degenerate, debased, sin, sick soul on it's way to hell and turn it around and recreate it so that it becomes a citizen of heaven.  That's the greatest miracle God ever did and he does it constantly.
 
There are other miracles.  All kinds of miracles that God does.  That is not to say that the gift of miracles still exists.  It is not a gift through a person anymore.  God still does miracles by His own sovereign design and as a result of prayer.  But it is not the same as the apostolic gift of miracles.  Now, our Lord, and let me talk about this for a minute, our Lord did many different kinds of miracles including raising the dead.  And these were proofs of His deity.  They were to verify His messiahship.  They were to corroborate His claim that He was the Son of God. 
 
For example, as we saw this morning, He'd say, "I am the bread of life," and then He'd make bread.  He'd say, "I am the living water," and then He would talk about a water that He could give that was like no other water.  He would say, "I am the light of the world," and give sight to blind eyes and light to blind souls.  He would say, "I am the resurrection and the life," and then raise somebody from the dead physically and spiritually.
 
He was verifying His claims by miracles.  Our Lord did them, but it's interesting for us to note, I think, that they had a very limited effect didn't they.  I mean, He did the miracles constantly in front of Israel and they didn't believe Him.  Finally, they concluded that He did His miracles by whose power?  The Beelzebub, Satan.  So they had a very limited effect.
 
Not only did they have a limited effect with Christ, but they also had a limited effect with the apostles and the profits, very limited.  The casting of the evil spirit out of the soothsayer was the direct cause of all the trouble in Philippi.  When that miracle happened, that made such chaos in Philippi that you know what happened ultimately. 
 
The restoration of the lame person at Lystra by Paul seemed to have a great effect on the people.  It did for a little while, that's in Acts Chapter 14.  It looked like that the restoration of that lame person was really going to have a great effect, but soon after that they stoned Paul and left him for dead.  That's a rather minimal effect.
 
After Philippi for a period of two years there is no mention of any miracle wrought by Paul.  They were very limited, very limited.  There is no record of miracles ever happening in Antioch, at Corinth, in Thessalonica, at Derby, at Bariah, this was a very minimal, limited ministry.
 
And Paul puts not emphasis upon the working of miracles, nothing.  He continually stresses the need for faith.  In all his lists, requirements for a bishop, for an elder, for a deacon, there's never anything about miracles. 
 
All through the whole Epistles out of all of those that he writes, there is nothing about people working miracles.  James doesn't say anything about it.  John doesn't say anything about it.  Jude doesn't say anything about it, nobody does outside of the book of Acts. And certain other scriptures eluding to those ministries.  There is no emphasis in the Bible on working miracles.  Because it was obvious to Paul and to every other writer that that belonged to an apostolic era and when it closed that was over.
 
And it had no continuing place in the ministry of the church.  We don't need the gift of miracles today.  Paul says, "we need the manifestation of a spirit life," right?  We need to live in the energy of the Spirit.  Now I'm not depreciating miracles.  They have a place, but not through the gift of miracles which was apostolic.
 
They not only had a limited effect, but they had a limited purpose.  They were in...they were for an infant stage of the church to verify the gospel.  They were the signs and wonders and mighty deeds just for the beginning.  Now one other thought.  They had a limited time and I want to illustrate this, I think very importantly for just a moment.  In order to understand how God has used miracles, you must observe different periods in scripture where miracles occur.  There were four miraculous periods of miracles in the Bible.  And they happened and they ended, and they happened and they ended, and there's great sweeping periods of history where there are no miracles recorded.
 
The first period of miracles was Moses' day.  The second period of miracles was the time of Elijah and Elishah.  The third period of miracles was the life of Christ.  And friends between the time of the Elishah and Elijah and Christ there just aren't any.  The fourth period of miracles was right following the life of Christ after Pentecost in the early church.
 
Now miracles have their place to attest to God's truth at a specific time and they are always limited by time.  First of all, recall the first period of miracles, which was the time of Moses.  You don't read about miracles in the patriarch's time, do you?  Apart from God's creative miracles and things like the flood, in terms of men doing miracles, you don't read about them in Genesis.  Moses initiated the first period of miracles.  And his miracles were performed in reference to the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, weren't they?
 
In Exodus 7:3 it says, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt."  Notice whose wonders they are, not man's but God's.  And God says I'll do it in reference to Egypt.  And it was important, because how would Pharaoh really know that God was working in Israel, unless there was something to attest to it, right?  And he got a good dose of attestation.  And not only that, how would the Israelites know that God was working there unless there was some miracles to verify it.  And so in the time of Moses there were miracles.  It was the first great period of miracles.  And the signs substantiated Moses as God's appointed ruler. 
 
Now this is not a hard and fast rule.  There are some points during the other periods in between where God would do a miraculous thing, but were specifically through an individual miracles were wrought, they're pretty well limited to this period.  The following period would then be the period of Elijah and Elishah and of all the prophets they were the ones who did the miracles.
 
And again, the reason was because Israel needed to know who God was because they were messing around with Baal, right?  And they needed to hear the word of God and they needed to see a miracle to know that God was indeed talking and it worked.  It was to authenticate the authority of God.  In 1 Kings 18:36, it says, "Let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel and that I am thy servant."  That's what Elijah said.  And how did God let it be known?  By a miracle.
 
And so it was to authenticate the authority of God and Elijah as God's appointed representative and they also continued through Elishah.  Then you have a great period of years and years, centuries go by where miracles don't even have a part of anything, and all of sudden they reappear in the person of Christ.  The third state of miracles.
 
Christ and His apostles, Luke 11:20, Christ said, "And if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God has come upon you."  In other words, Christ wanted men to know that He had arrived to offer the kingdom and He brought along some miracles to prove that this was indeed from God.  The miracles that Christ did substantiated His person and authenticated the offer of the kingdom.  And the miracles of course of the apostles authenticated that Jesus was indeed their Messiah.
 
Then you had the fourth period of miracles, the apostles of the early church.  And that again, to corroborate to unbelievers the testimony of God.  Now in each case, it was to unbelieve.  Israel and Egypt, unbelieving.  God needed to attest a miracle, right?  In Egypt Ferrell also didn't believe in God.  Miracles to verify God's existence. 
 
The second period under Elijah and Elishah again Israel and unbelief and Baal worship, miracles came to a test to God's word to unbelief.  In the life of Christ, He came, did miracles to attest to His deity in front of the unbelief of Israel.  In the early church, the apostles and prophets did miracles to verify to the world that indeed they were speaking the oracles of God.
 
Always in every one of those four periods, miracles were to verify that God was involved, that God was speaking and the verification was aimed directly at unbelievers.  And of course, as a sidelight, obviously, it would strengthen the faith of a believer.  But the purpose was for unbelievers.  And so in every case of the four periods of miracles, the miracles were worked against a background of unbelief and designed to be assigned to unbelievers.  Whether it was unbelieving Pharaoh, unbelieving Egyptians or unbelieving Jews or unbelieving Gentiles.
 
Now when we come to the fourth period in the book of Acts, we find they were for the same purpose exactly.  And in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says, "So tongues," as an illustration, "are a sign for the unbeliever."  Obvious, all the others were too. 
 
So the miracles have always been temporary at any age and with the completion of the New Testament scripture, their time ended.  The authentication of any minister ceases to be the miracles and becomes the word of God.  And if a man adheres to the word of God, then he is authenticated, isn't he?
 
Now may I quickly say God is still doing miracles today, but not to authenticate His word.  He's doing them apart from any gift of any man, but in response to faith and prayer and His own sovereign design.
 
Second miraculous gift is the gift of healing.  If you'll notice down in verse 29, pardon me, verse 30 it talks about the gift of healing.  The gift of healing was the ability to heal whenever the opportunity presented itself a man actually had the gift to heal people.  Now it wasn't his own power.  Do you remember Peter and John said, "in the name of Jesus of Nazareth," what, "rise up and walk."
 
"In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk."  It never was their own power, but they had the ability to call on the power of Christ at any time for healing.  This was the gift of healing and it was always done to verify the word.  It was always a confirming gift for an unbeliever.
 
Now, I'm not saying that healing had ceased.  That would be idiotic to say that. Healing is still going, isn't it?  God is healing.  People are miracles of God's grace and healing.  You know, we've prayed for people and God is healed them of diseases when they were past the point of medical aid.  Of course God still heals, but the gift of healing ceased in the apostolic era.
 
Today God heals in His sovereign will and response to the prayer of faith, doesn't He?  And incidentally, I think there is a gift that brings about healing.  You know, it's not the gift of healing.  Do you know what it