The gifts of the Spirit and the office every Christian already holds

Three lists, one giver

Paul’s letters carry three separate inventories of spiritual endowment. 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 lists nine manifestations of the Spirit. Ephesians 4:11 lists five ministries given by the ascended Christ. Romans 12:6-8 lists seven functions of the body.

Paul opens the first list with three nouns in three verses (1 Corinthians 12:4-6 ): charisma (χάρισμα , “grace-effect”), diakonia (διακονία , “service, ministry”), energēma (ἐνέργημα , “working, operation”). Diversities of gifts, differences of administrations, diversities of operations, and behind each the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God. The nine items are grace-effects, services, and workings handed out by one distributor. Ephesians calls its five domata (δόματα , “gifts”), handed out at the ascension: “When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men” (Ephesians 4:8 , quoting Psalm 68:18 ).

The distribution is universal in all three lists. The manifestation of the Spirit, phanerōsis (φανέρωσις , “a making visible”), is given “to every man to profit withal” (12:7), and the list closes “dividing to every man severally as he will” (1 Corinthians 12:11 ); hekastos (ἕκαστος , “each one”) carries both statements. Ephesians opens the same way: “unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ” (4:7). Romans addresses “gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us” (12:6).

Ordained before the womb

The call of Jeremiah names the order of events: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5). Four Hebrew verbs carry the verse. Yatsar (יָצַר , “to form”) is the making of the man. Yada (יָדַע , “to know”) is personal knowledge, and it stands before the forming. Qadash (קָדַשׁ , “to set apart, sanctify”) marks the separation. Natan (נָתַן , “to give, to appoint”) is what the KJV renders “ordained”: the office is handed over before the prophet is born.

Paul dates the believer’s appointment earlier still: “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4 ). The appointment precedes the birth, and the birth precedes the discovery. Jeremiah learned what he was when the word of the Lord came to him; the ordination was older than the announcement.

Three readings of the three lists

The charismatic reading builds on 1 Corinthians 12. Discerning of spirits, diakrisis (διάκρισις , “distinguishing between spirits”), becomes the lens for everything, until every sickness and every conflict reads as a demon. The chapter itself answers the reflex. The nine are distributed “to every man severally as he will” (12:11), one Spirit assigning different endowments to different people, and Paul closes with the questions: “Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?” (1 Corinthians 12:29-30 ). The expected answer is no: “the body is not one member, but many” (1 Corinthians 12:14 ).

The cessationist reading holds that the signs and gifts ended with the apostles. Its text is 1 Corinthians 13: “whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease” (1 Corinthians 13:8 ), “when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away” (1 Corinthians 13:10 ). Read with the canon as to teleion (τὸ τέλειον , “the complete”), the passage retires the supernatural at the close of the New Testament. The passage gives its own timing: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12 ). The text attaches the completion to a face-to-face meeting; the canon reading is an inference the verse itself never states.

The five-fold reading runs on Ephesians 4:11, the most quoted of the three lists in church life: “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.” The quoting usually stops where the purpose clause begins: “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12 ). Katartismos (καταρτισμός , “equipping, making fit”) assigns the labor: the five equip the saints, the saints do the work of the ministry, and the body is built. Read with verse 12, the five are equippers and the ministry belongs to the saints. Each of the five offices has its own study on this site: apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher.

Demons in the synagogue

Underneath the debate sits one assumption that settles the question early for many believers: a Christian cannot have a demon. No verse says it. The Gospel record runs the other way, and its setting is the synagogue.

The observant Jews of the first century prayed, fasted twice in the week, and gave tithes of all they possessed (Luke 18:12 ); they kept the Sabbath and filled the synagogue. They were the model believers of their day, and they are the people in the deliverance cases.

• “And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit” (Mark 1:23 ). The man sat in the service in Capernaum; the spirit surfaced when Jesus taught and came out at his command (Mark 1:25-26).
• A woman “had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself” (Luke 13:11 ). Jesus calls her “a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound” (Luke 13:16 ): a covenant member, bound, in the synagogue on the Sabbath.
• A father brings his son, afflicted “of a child” (Mark 9:21 ), after the disciples cannot cast it out. The father’s confession is a believer’s: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24 ). Jesus names the remedy for the case: “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting” (Mark 9:29 ).
• Mary Magdalene, “out of whom went seven devils” (Luke 8:2 ), joins the women who “ministered unto him of their substance” (Luke 8:3 ).

The deliverance cases of the Gospels happen to the observant, inside the congregation, on the Sabbath.

How the enemy gains access

Threat. The devil’s targets are the effective. God describes Job as “a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil” (Job 1:8 ), and that is the man Satan moves against. Jesus warns the leading apostle: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat” (Luke 22:31 ). Peter later writes the general form: “your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8 ). The wrestle runs against a non-human roster: “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers” (Ephesians 6:12 ; the equipment for that wrestle is mapped in the armor of God).

Sin. “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26-27 ). Topos (τόπος , “place, ground”) is territory: held anger hands the devil ground, and the instruction is written to believers, which means believers can hand it over. In the Jerusalem congregation Peter asks a church member: “Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?” (Acts 5:3 ). The man with the Satan-filled heart sat inside the membership.

Trauma and long years. Some cases carry no named sin. The boy of Mark 9 was afflicted “of a child” (9:21). The woman of Luke 13 was bound eighteen years (13:16), and Jesus attaches no fault to her; he looses her and calls her a daughter of Abraham. Affliction that begins in childhood or outlasts decades sits in the deliverance column of the text.

The commission includes the authority

The Gospels end on the mandate, and the mandate covers the supernatural. Mark records: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature… And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues” (Mark 16:15-18 ). The carriers of the signs are “them that believe,” an open roster with no ordination requirement attached.

Matthew records the same sending with its foundation and its syllabus. The foundation: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18 ), where power renders exousia (ἐξουσία , “authority”). The syllabus: “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20 ), and the commanded things include the sending instructions of Matthew 10:8 : “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.” The single-verse citation of Matthew 28:19 , “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,” drops the authority of verse 18 and the content of verse 20.

The era-limit fails inside the same Gospels. The seventy of Luke 10 were not apostles. They return from their sending with the report “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name” (Luke 10:17 ), and Jesus confirms the transfer: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19 ). Authority over the demonic was exercised by believers outside the Twelve before the cross.

Even Rome, whose authority structure stands outside this site’s agreement, treats that authority as present and operative. The 1983 Code of Canon Law restricts exorcism to “a presbyter who has piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life,” acting with “special and express permission from the local ordinary” (can. 1172), and the Church maintains a current rite for the work, De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam (1999). Deliverance under authority is institutionalized there to this day.

The office already held

None of the three lists leaves room for an audience. The believer who attends a church because it has a prophet, or a man who casts out demons, has outsourced an office that was assigned before his birth.

Romans 12 reads differently against that background. Its seven functions come with instructions addressed to people already doing them: “he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness” (Romans 12:8 ). Ho metadidous (ὁ μεταδιδούς , “the one who gives, who shares”) is a present participle: the giver is giving when Paul writes the instruction. Nobody waits to be appointed to giving; the function is discovered in operation, and the instruction adjusts the manner: simplicity, diligence, cheerfulness.

Paul’s picture of the gathered church has the same shape: “when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation” (1 Corinthians 14:26 ). The meeting is built out of what every member brings.

Peter states the standing rule: “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10 ). Jesus states the accounting: “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48 ).

References

1. Codex Iuris Canonici (1983), can. 1172: exorcism restricted to a presbyter of piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life, acting only with special and express permission of the local ordinary.
2. Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam (1999): the current rite of major exorcism.