Excerpted from Keys To The Deeper Life by A. W. Tozer
IN THEIR attitude
toward the gifts of the Spirit, Christians…have tended to divide themselves
into three groups: First, there are those who magnify the gifts of the Spirit until
they can see little else. Second, there are those who deny that the gifts of
the Spirit are intended for the Church in this period of her history. Third,
there are those who appear to be thoroughly bored with the whole thing and do
not care to discuss it.
…Another group, so few in number as
scarcely to call for classification, consists of those who want to know the
truth about the Spirit’s gifts and to experience whatever God has for them
within the context of sound New Testament faith. It is for these that this is
written.
What Is
the True Church?
A proper
understanding of the gifts of the Spirit in the Church must depend upon a right
concept of the nature of the Church…. The true Church is a spiritual
phenomenon…composed of regenerated persons who differ from other human beings
in that they have a superior kind of life imparted to them at the time of their
inward renewal.
• They are children of God in a sense not true
of any other created beings.
• Their origin is divine and their citizenship
is in heaven.
• They worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in
Jesus Christ, and have no confidence in
the flesh.
• They constitute a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.
• They have espoused the cause of a rejected
and crucified Man who claimed to be God and who has pledged His sacred honor
that He will prepare a place for them in His Father’s house and return again to
conduct them there with rejoicing.
In the meantime, they carry His cross,
suffer whatever indignities men may heap upon them for His sake, act as His
ambassadors, and do good to all men in His name. They steadfastly believe that
they will share His triumph and [thus] are perfectly willing to share His rejection
by a society that does not understand them. They have no hard feelings—only
charity and compassion and a strong desire that all men may come to repentance
and be reconciled to God.
This is a fair summary of one aspect of
New Testament teaching about the Church. But another truth, more revealing and
significant to those seeking information about the gifts of the Spirit, is that
the Church is a spiritual body, an organic entity united by the life that
dwells within it.
Each member is joined to the whole by a
relationship of life. As a man’s soul may be said to be the life of his body,
so the indwelling Spirit is the life of the Church. The idea that the Church is
the body of Christ is not an erroneous one…. The Apostle Paul in three of his epistles
sets forth this truth in such sobriety of tone and fullness of detail as to
preclude the notion that he is employing a casual figure of speech not intended
to be taken too literally.
[His] clear, emphatic teaching…is that
Christ is the Head of the Church, which is His body. The parallel is drawn
carefully…. Conclusions are drawn from the doctrine, and certain moral conduct
is made to depend upon it.
As a normal man consists of a body with
various obedient members [and] a head to direct them, so the true Church is a
body, individual Christians being the members and Christ the Head.
The mind works through the members of the
body, using them to fulfill its intelligent purposes. Paul speaks of the foot,
the hand, the ear, the eye as being members of the body, each with its proper
but limited function; but it is the Spirit that worketh in them (1 Cor.
12:1-31).
The teaching that the Church is the body
of Christ in 2 Corinthians 12 follows a listing of certain spiritual gifts and
reveals the necessity for those gifts.
The intelligent head can work only as it
has at its command organs designed for various tasks. It is the mind that sees,
but it must have an eye to see through. It is the mind that hears, but it
cannot hear without an ear. And so [it is] with all the varied members—the
instruments by means of which the mind moves into the external world to carry
out its plans.
As all man’s work is done by his mind, so
the work of the Church is done by the Spirit, and by Him alone. But to work, He
must set in the body certain members with abilities specifically created to act
as media through which the Spirit can flow toward ordained ends.
How
Many Gifts?
Paul mentions no less than 17 (1 Cor.
12:4-11, 27-31; Rom. 12:3-8; Eph. 4:7-11). These are not natural talents merely
but gifts imparted by the Holy Spirit to fit the believer for his place in the
body of Christ…. [T]hrough the body of Christ, God is doing an eternal work
above and beyond the realm of fallen nature. This requires supernatural
working.
Religious work can be done by natural men
without the gifts of the Spirit, and it can be done well and skillfully. But
work designed for eternity can only be done by the eternal Spirit…through gifts
He has Himself implanted in the souls of redeemed men….
Certain evangelical teachers have told us
that the gifts of the Spirit ceased at the death of the apostles or at the
completion of the New Testament. This, of course, is a doctrine without a
syllable of biblical authority back of it…. The result of this erroneous
teaching is that spiritually gifted persons are ominously few among us. When
we so desperately need leaders with the gift of discernment, for instance, we
do not have them and are compelled to fall back upon the techniques of the
world. This frightening hour calls aloud for men with the gift of prophetic insight.
Instead we have men who conduct surveys, polls, and panel discussions. We need
men with the gift of knowledge. In their place we have men with
scholarship—nothing more…. [highlighting is mine. CMR]
[T]he Scriptures plainly imply the
imperative of possessing the gifts of the Spirit. Paul urges that we both
“covet” and “desire” spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1). It does not appear
to be an optional matter with us but rather a scriptural mandate to those who
have been filled with the Spirit.
But I must also add a word of caution. The
various spiritual gifts are not equally valuable, as Paul so carefully
explained. Certain brethren have magnified one gift out of 17 out of all
proportion.… [T]he general moral results of this teaching have…not been good….
[I]t has resulted in much shameless exhibitionism, a tendency to depend upon
experiences instead of upon Christ, and often a lack of ability to distinguish
the works of the flesh from the operations of the Spirit.
Those who deny that the gifts are for us
today and those who insist upon making a hobby of one gift are both wrong, and
we are all suffering the consequences of their errors.
…We have every right to expect our Lord to
grant to His church spiritual gifts, which He has never in fact taken away from
us but which we are failing to receive only because of our error or unbelief.
It is more than possible that God is even
now imparting the gifts of the Spirit to whomsoever He can and in whatever
measure He can as His conditions are met even imperfectly. Otherwise, the torch
of truth would flicker out and die.
Clearly, however, we have yet to see what
God would do for His Church if we would all throw ourselves down before Him
with an open Bible and cry, “Behold Thy servant, Lord! Be it unto me even as Thou
wilt."
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