Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Cessation of the Sign Gifts (1 Corinthians 13:8-10)
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to reformed thinking. Think about the last wedding you
- 0:03went to. Picture the scene in your head.
- 0:05Right, the guests are seated, the floral arrangements are set
- 0:08up, and everyone is quiet. Yeah, exactly.
- 0:12The bride and groom are at the front, and at some point a
- 0:15designated reader steps up to a microphone, clears their throat
- 0:19and starts reading. From First Corinthians chapter.
- 0:2113 Oh, the classic wedding text. You know the one.
- 0:25They read it with this very soft, sentimental tone.
- 0:28Love is patient. Love is kind.
- 0:30It does not envy. It does not boast.
- 0:32And it always gets framed as this highly romantic poem.
- 0:36It really does. It gets treated like a lovely
- 0:37greeting card sentiment, something designed to give a
- 0:41newlywed couple warm feelings about their future.
- 0:44But here is the massive cultural irony we are unpacking in
- 0:47today's deep dive. The irony that Paul would
- 0:49probably be shocked by how we use it.
- 0:51Oh completely. The apostle Paul did not write
- 0:53those words to be read over a bride and groom in a Pristine
- 0:56Chapel. He wrote that chapter as a
- 0:58harsh, devastating weapon. A weapon aimed straight at the
- 1:01heart of a chaotic, arrogant and highly prideful church.
- 1:05Yes, he was writing to a congregation that was actively
- 1:09tearing itself apart, and he was using the concept of love to
- 1:14totally dismantle their arrogance.
- 1:16So our mission today is to look at 2 incredibly dense, highly
- 1:20detailed theological texts dealing with the signed gifts of
- 1:24the early church. Right.
- 1:25Specifically, tongues, prophecy, and the Word of Wisdom.
- 1:28We want to understand what those miraculous operations actually
- 1:31were. And we need to look at why they
- 1:33existed in the 1st century in the first place.
- 1:35Plus, we're going to look closely at the Greek grammar of
- 1:37First Corinthians. Our sources make a definitive
- 1:41text driven argument that those specific miraculous operations
- 1:44ceased entirely in the 1st century.
- 1:46It's a massive topic. We're going to look at the
- 1:48historical timeline, the syntax, and the sheer theological weight
- 1:52of Paul's argument. So let us get right into it.
- 1:54That cultural irony about the weddings reveals a lot about how
- 1:57modern readers approach the biblical text.
- 1:59It really does when you isolate First Corinthians 13 from its
- 2:03immediate historical context. I mean you lose the whole
- 2:06argument Paul is making. He is not offering a romantic
- 2:09ideal at all. No, not even close.
- 2:11He is engaged in a rigorous theological correction.
- 2:16So the core question we have to answer today is what were these
- 2:19miraculous gifts functioning as in that specific historical
- 2:23moment? Why did the early church need
- 2:25them? Right then, and looking at the
- 2:28precise Greek grammar, why do our sources argue that these
- 2:31gifts had a built in expiration date?
- 2:33To grasp any of that, you have to realize that the church in
- 2:36Corinth was in a state of absolute crisis.
- 2:38They were taking the extraordinary miraculous
- 2:41operations of the Holy Spirit and using them as tools for self
- 2:45promotion. Yeah, they were establishing a
- 2:47social hierarchy. They ranked each other based on
- 2:49who could produce the most spectacular outward display.
- 2:52So to get a firm grip on why Paul is writing to them with
- 2:55such urgency, we have to talk about the historical and
- 2:58geographical reality of ancient Corinth.
- 3:00Let us build that setting for you.
- 3:01Right now we are talking around 8053 or 54.
- 3:04Right. And we need to look at what was
- 3:06happening in the house churches of that city, because these new
- 3:09believers were bringing a massive amount of cultural
- 3:11baggage straight into their worship gatherings.
- 3:14Corinth was not some sleepy little village.
- 3:17It was a bustling, cosmopolitan commercial hub.
- 3:20It sat right on an isthmus, a very narrow strip of land
- 3:24connecting the Peloponnese with mainland Greece.
- 3:27They actually had a stone track called the Diolcos.
- 3:30They would literally drag ships across the land to avoid the
- 3:33treacherous sea journey around the peninsula.
- 3:35Which meant to control both eastern and western trade
- 3:37routes. Corinth was incredibly wealthy.
- 3:40I always think of it as the ancient equivalent of Wall
- 3:43Street mixed with Las Vegas. That is a brilliant way to
- 3:46picture it. The people there were highly
- 3:48ambitious, status obsessed and focused entirely on climbing the
- 3:52social ladder. But layered on top of that
- 3:54wealth was this intense environment of Greco Roman
- 3:57paganism. Specifically, they were situated
- 4:00relatively close to Delphi, the site of the famous Oracle.
- 4:04The whole region was heavily influenced by Hellenistic
- 4:07mystery religions. And within those Pagan cults,
- 4:10particularly the worship of Apollo and Dionysus, you had
- 4:13worshippers engaging in ecstatic, frenzied speech,
- 4:16right? Historically, this practice is
- 4:18referred to as glossolalia. The adherence of these cults
- 4:21would work themselves into a trance like state.
- 4:24They would Babble irrationally and claim they were receiving
- 4:27direct oracular utterances from the gods.
- 4:30And this was not just some fringe activity.
- 4:32This was the accepted cultural cultural standard for religious
- 4:36experience in that region. This was how you proved you were
- 4:39connected to the divine. The Wilder the display, the more
- 4:42out of control you appeared, the more spiritual the culture
- 4:45considered you to be. This is where the problem hits
- 4:48the local church assembly head on.
- 4:50The Corinthians were saved out of that Pagan darkness, but they
- 4:53dragged that experiential baggage straight through the
- 4:56front door. They equated Christian spiritual
- 4:58maturity with those spectacular chaotic displays.
- 5:02They assumed that if the Holy Spirit of God was moving, it
- 5:05must look like the frenzied chaos of the temples of Apollo.
- 5:08Yeah, they had no category for a quiet, orderly move of God.
- 5:12LIT is an analogy for this. Imagine you invite someone to a
- 5:14very solemn, formal dinner party.
- 5:17OK, I can picture that very refined, nice silverware.
- 5:20Yes, it is a quiet atmosphere. People are having focused,
- 5:24meaningful, intelligent conversations, but this guest
- 5:28shows up and starts acting like they're still at a loud, chaotic
- 5:31nightclub. Oh wow, so they are shouting
- 5:34over music that is not even playing.
- 5:36Right. They are knocking things over,
- 5:38trying to become the center of attention, totally misreading
- 5:41the room. They misunderstood the
- 5:43environment and they fundamentally misunderstood the
- 5:45host of the gathering. That is exactly what was
- 5:47happening. The Corinthians were treating
- 5:49the worship of the one true God like a Pagan nightclub.
- 5:52They were trying to impress each other with outward spectacles.
- 5:55They were misusing the genuine operations of the Holy Spirit to
- 5:59mimic the Pagan frenzy they were used to.
- 6:02But we also have to ask why the Holy Spirit was granting
- 6:05miraculous manifestations in the first place.
- 6:07And that brings us to the dispensational shift.
- 6:09We have to look at the redemptive historical context.
- 6:12The early Church was existing in a very specific transitional
- 6:15phase of history. Our sources operate from a
- 6:18framework that recognizes a sharp distinction between the
- 6:21nation of Israel and the new entity of the Church.
- 6:24During this 1st century window, God was establishing this new
- 6:28body, but the written Canon of Scripture was not yet complete.
- 6:32The New Covenant scriptures, all the letters and gospels we read
- 6:35today had not been fully compiled yet.
- 6:37Because the early believers lacked a finalized written
- 6:40standard of doctrine, God graciously provided the apostles
- 6:44and early church prophets with miraculous signs.
- 6:47And these signs accomplish 2 very specific things.
- 6:51First, they validated the authority of the apostles as the
- 6:54true messengers of God. They confirmed the shift away
- 6:57from the Mosaic economy, and let us clarify that term for you,
- 7:01the listener. Yeah, that is a theological term
- 7:03we should break down. When we say the Mosaic economy,
- 7:05we are referring to the Old Testament system, the temple
- 7:08sacrifices, Levitical priests, dietary laws, and national
- 7:12regulations from Mount Sinai. That entire system was being
- 7:16fulfilled and phased out. God was inaugurating a new
- 7:19covenant. And he used miracles to
- 7:21authenticate the men who were laying the ground level doctrine
- 7:23for it. The miracles were essentially
- 7:26the divine signature on the Apostolic message.
- 7:28Proving that the shift away from the Sinai covenant was ordained
- 7:31by God. But there was a second specific
- 7:35purpose, right? Yes, and it relates directly to
- 7:37the manifestation of tongues. This miraculous ability to speak
- 7:41in unlearned foreign languages functioned as a sign of
- 7:45judgement against unbelieving Israel.
- 7:47Paul explains this explicitly in First Corinthians chapter 14.
- 7:51He quotes the prophet Isaiah, specifically Isaiah 28 verses 11
- 7:56and 12. In that passage, God told
- 7:58rebellious Israel that because they refused to listen to the
- 8:01clear words of the prophets, he would speak to them through men
- 8:04of strange lips and foreign tongues.
- 8:06So the presence of these foreign languages in the Christian
- 8:08assembly was a divine declaration.
- 8:10A declaration that God was turning his attention to the
- 8:13Gentiles and judgement was coming upon the unbelieving
- 8:16Jewish nation. That redemptive historical
- 8:19context changes everything about how you read the letters to
- 8:22Corinth. It totally removes the mystery
- 8:25of why these things were happening.
- 8:26But the Corinthians missed all of this.
- 8:29They ignored the redemptive purpose.
- 8:31Because they were obsessed with status, they started ranking
- 8:34these spiritual manifestations. They wanted the visible showy
- 8:38ones. And that brings us right into
- 8:39First Corinthians chapter 12, where Paul begins to
- 8:42systematically dismantle their entire ranking system.
- 8:46He starts his list of manifestations with the Word of
- 8:48Wisdom. We need to pause and define what
- 8:51that actually means. It was a highly misunderstood
- 8:54phrase today. Yeah, because when we hear a
- 8:56word of wisdom today, we might just think of an older pastor
- 8:59giving good, practical advice. Or a mature Christian offering a
- 9:03prudent perspective on a difficult life decision.
- 9:06But based on the textual analysis in our sources, when
- 9:08Paul talks about the Word of Wisdom in chapter 12, he is not
- 9:11talking about basic everyday prudence, is he?
- 9:14No, absolutely not. He is addressing something far
- 9:17more specific and extraordinary. The text does not allow us to
- 9:21reduce the Word of Wisdom to ordinary cleverness or human
- 9:24insight. It also forbids us from treating
- 9:26it as a continuing stream of private revelation for believers
- 9:29today. In the context of the Apostolic
- 9:31Church, this was a specific temporary spirit given
- 9:36utterance. It was not a vague psychological
- 9:38impression. It was a direct communication of
- 9:41divine truth. It was tailored to the immediate
- 9:44doctrinal needs of the early Church before they had the
- 9:47completed scriptures. And Paul places this squarely
- 9:50within the triune source of all spiritual operations to correct
- 9:54their bad theology. Let us look closely at First
- 9:57Corinthians 12, verses 4 through 11.
- 10:00Paul deliberately sets the variety of gifts against the
- 10:03unity of the Godhead. He writes that there are
- 10:05varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
- 10:08Varieties of ministries but the same Lord.
- 10:11Varieties of workings, but the same God.
- 10:13That specific rhetorical structure is designed to
- 10:15completely crush human pride. Because if the try in God is the
- 10:19one sovereignly distributing these things, as the text says,
- 10:22as He wills, then human boasting is logically excluded.
- 10:25You cannot take credit for something that was handed to you
- 10:28sovereignly by the Spirit for a specific task.
- 10:30Right. You did not earn it through
- 10:32spiritual superiority. You did not achieve it by
- 10:35reaching a higher level of enlightenment.
- 10:37You were simply a vessel chosen for a specific function.
- 10:41The Corinthian error was treating a divine trust as a
- 10:44personal achievement. They took what God meant for the
- 10:47benefit of others and turned it into a personal trophy.
- 10:50But Paul gives a controlling rule for all these
- 10:52manifestations. In verse 7 he writes that the
- 10:55manifestation of the Spirit is given to profit withal.
- 10:58Meaning for the common good of the assembly.
- 11:00That is the ultimate filter for any claim of spiritual activity
- 11:04in the early church. Every genuine operation of the
- 11:06Spirit in that era existed to build up the entire congregation
- 11:11to strengthen their collective understanding of the Gospel.
- 11:13Not to elevate a single speaker or give someone a special
- 11:17platform. So let us apply that standard
- 11:19right now. Let us say someone in a modern
- 11:22church setting claims to have an extra biblical revelation.
- 11:25OK, or they stand up and say they have a special word of
- 11:28wisdom from the Lord. If that claim elevates the
- 11:31speaker, draws attention to their own spiritual status, or
- 11:34causes confusion in the congregation, that claim
- 11:37automatically fails Paul's test in verse 7.
- 11:40It fails the test immediately. It cannot be of the Holy Spirit
- 11:44if it contradicts the very design the Holy Spirit
- 11:47established. True spiritual operations in the
- 11:491st century always built up the body.
- 11:52They brought theological clarity and pointed the congregation
- 11:55back to the finished work of Christ.
- 11:57And the Corinthians were experiencing the exact opposite
- 12:00of that. Their gatherings were
- 12:02characterized by division, competition and chaos.
- 12:05Which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were abusing
- 12:08the manifestations they had been given.
- 12:11They were failing the test of the common good.
- 12:14So if they're using these gifts to prop themselves up and build
- 12:16their own personal brands, Paul knows he has to attack the root
- 12:20of the issue. He.
- 12:21Has to in back their pride. He moves from explaining the
- 12:24nature of the gifts in chapter 12 to explaining their duration
- 12:27in chapter 13. He introduces love not as a soft
- 12:30emotional feeling, but as a weapon against their arrogance.
- 12:35Which brings us back to that wedding passage we talked about
- 12:37at the beginning. Chapter 13 is not a stand alone
- 12:40poem you can just lift out of the text.
- 12:42No, it is the hinge of his entire theological argument.
- 12:46It is a highly cohesive literary polemic.
- 12:49Paul starts by exaggerating the sign gifts.
- 12:51Hypothetically, he wants to show how useless they are without the
- 12:54right character. He says even if I speak in the
- 12:56tongues of men and of angels, even if I possess all prophetic
- 13:00abilities and understand all mysteries, if I do not have a
- 13:04gap of love, I am just a noisy gong.
- 13:07Or a clanging cymbal, and that imagery is not random at all.
- 13:11He is referencing the specific annoying sounds of the Pagan
- 13:14temples they were intimately familiar with.
- 13:16The worshippers of Dionysus used brass gongs and cymbals in their
- 13:20frantic rituals. Paul is basically telling the
- 13:23Corinthians that without the self sacrificial character of
- 13:25love, their spectacular showy displays are worthless.
- 13:29They just sound like the Pagan priests they were supposed to
- 13:31have left behind. To really visualize what Paul is
- 13:34saying about the temporary nature of these gifts versus the
- 13:36permanent nature of love, we need an analogy.
- 13:39Think about a massive construction site.
- 13:42Imagine you were walking down the street and you pass a
- 13:45beautiful towering cathedral that is still under
- 13:47construction. Right there is metal scaffolding
- 13:49set up all or on the outside of it.
- 13:51Now the scaffolding is absolutely necessary.
- 13:53You need it to lay the bricks to install the stained glass
- 13:57windows to get the workers up to the higher level safely.
- 14:00But imagine if you walk by one day and the construction workers
- 14:04have become obsessively focused on the scaffolding itself.
- 14:07They start bragging about the metal pipes.
- 14:09They spend all day polishing the scaffolding.
- 14:12They argue fiercely over who gets to stand on the highest
- 14:15tier of the scaffolding. Yes, and they completely ignore
- 14:18the actual brick and mortar structure they are being paid to
- 14:21build. In Paul's argument, love is the
- 14:24building. The character of Christ formed
- 14:26in the local church is the actual structure.
- 14:29The miraculous gifts were just the scaffolding.
- 14:32They were temporary utilitarian tools designed by God to help
- 14:36establish the structure during the Apostolic age.
- 14:40You do not Polish the scaffolding, you use it and then
- 14:42when the building is finished, you tear it down.
- 14:45That visual aligns perfectly with Paul's vocabulary.
- 14:48In the text, Paul explicitly contrasts the permanent
- 14:51character of love with the sheer utility of the gifts.
- 14:54He says in verse 8 that love never fails.
- 14:58The Greek word he uses there is piptay, which literally means to
- 15:01fall down or to collapse. Love will never collapse.
- 15:05It is an eternal attribute of God that will continue right
- 15:09into the eschatological state. And we should define that term
- 15:11for clarity. When theologians talk about the
- 15:14eschatological state, they're talking about the final eternal
- 15:17condition of the universe. The new heavens and the new
- 15:20earth. The point when God brings all of
- 15:23human history to its intended conclusion and dwells with his
- 15:26people forever, Paul is saying that love continues right into
- 15:30that eternal reality. Love survives the end of the
- 15:33age, but the miraculous gifts were strictly utilitarian.
- 15:37They were never meant to enter the eternal state.
- 15:39They were not even meant to continue throughout all of
- 15:41church history. They had an expiration date
- 15:43built into their very designed. They were given for the infancy
- 15:47of the church, and they were designed to be removed.
- 15:49This brings us to the absolute core of our discussion today.
- 15:52This is where we get into the heavy lifting of the Greek
- 15:55grammar. Because the most natural
- 15:56question you might ask listening to this is how do we know these
- 15:59gifts had an expiration date? How do we know from the text
- 16:03that the scaffolding was meant to come down?
- 16:05We are not just guessing based on history.
- 16:07The answer lies in the precise syntax of First Corinthians
- 16:10chapter 13, specifically verses 8 through 10.
- 16:14Let us unpack the specific verbs Paul uses here, because they are
- 16:18incredibly revealing. We have to look at verse 8 with
- 16:21a magnifying glass. Paul makes 3 distinct statements
- 16:25about the sign gifts. He says whether there are
- 16:27prophecies, they will be abolished.
- 16:30Whether there are tongues, they will cease.
- 16:32Whether there is knowledge it will be abolished.
- 16:35The English translation smooths it out to make it readable, but
- 16:38the underlying Greek contains A deliberate, brilliant change in
- 16:41the verbal voice. Let us look at the gifts of
- 16:43prophecy and knowledge first. For both of those, Paul uses the
- 16:47verb catargio. This means to render
- 16:50inoperative, to abolish, or to bring to an end.
- 16:53Crucially, Paul places this verb in the future.
- 16:56Passive indicative. Let us break that down.
- 16:58When we look at Greek syntax, we have to ask what the passive
- 17:02voice signifies in this specific context.
- 17:05It is not just grammatical trivia, it dictates how the
- 17:07action happens. The passive voice means that the
- 17:10subject of the sentence is being acted upon by an outside force.
- 17:14So prophecy and knowledge are not going to just slowly fade
- 17:19away on their own due to lack of use.
- 17:21Right. An external agent is going to
- 17:23arrive and actively abolish them.
- 17:25They are going to be rendered inoperative by an outside force
- 17:29acting upon them. You have to keep that passive
- 17:31voice in mind because Paul immediately shifts his
- 17:33grammatical structure when he addresses the third gift.
- 17:37The gift of tongues. He drops Katargio completely for
- 17:40tongues. He uses a totally different word
- 17:42and a totally different voice. He uses the verb POW and more
- 17:45importantly, he shifts from the passive voice to the middle
- 17:48voice. He says whether there are
- 17:50tongues, they will cease using Pow in the future.
- 17:53Middle indicative. The middle voice in Greek
- 17:55grammar is reflexive. It means the subject
- 17:58participates in the results of the action.
- 18:00To put it simply and clearly, tongues will stop of their own
- 18:04accord. They will naturally die out.
- 18:06They do not require the outside force to arrive and abolish
- 18:09them. They will hit their designated
- 18:11expiration date and naturally, reflexively cease.
- 18:15That grammatical distinction is massive, so prophecy and
- 18:18knowledge are actively stopped by an outside force, but tongues
- 18:22naturally stop on their own. We have to ask why?
- 18:26Why would the gift of tongues naturally stop on its own while
- 18:30the others require an external agent?
- 18:32The answer is found in their specific historical purpose,
- 18:35which we touched on earlier. Right, referencing Isaiah 28,
- 18:38tongues function as a sign of judgment to unbelieving Israel.
- 18:41There were a warning that God was moving away from the
- 18:44national boundaries of Israel and forming a global body.
- 18:47When the Roman army marched into Jerusalem in 8070, burned the
- 18:51city and completely destroyed the Temple, that promised
- 18:54judgment was fulfilled. They dismantled the Jewish
- 18:56sacrificial system forever. The transition from the Jewish
- 19:00economy to the Church Age was firmly historically established.
- 19:03Once that specific prophesied historical purpose was complete,
- 19:07the gift of tongues naturally and permanently ceased.
- 19:11The scaffolding was removed because the warning had been
- 19:13delivered and executed. That handles Tums.
- 19:16The middle voice shows us they stop on their own when Jerusalem
- 19:19falls. But we are still left with the
- 19:22mystery of prophecy and knowledge.
- 19:25What is the outside force that actively abolishes them?
- 19:29We know from the passive voice that something has to arrive to
- 19:32render them inoperative. Verse 10 gives us the answer,
- 19:35but it is an answer that has caused massive debate within the
- 19:38broader church. Verse 10 says that the partial
- 19:40things will pass away when the perfect comes.
- 19:44I have to voice the common objection here.
- 19:46Many people read that phrase when the perfect comes, and they
- 19:49assume it means the return of Jesus Christ at the end of the
- 19:51age. Or they think it refers to the
- 19:53eternal state going to heaven. The argument goes like this,
- 19:57since Jesus has not returned yet, the perfect has not come,
- 20:00and therefore prophecy and words of knowledge must still be
- 20:03active today. It is a common assumption, but
- 20:06how does the text actually refute that assumption?
- 20:09The text refutes it grammatically.
- 20:11The phrase in the original Greek is to Teleon.
- 20:14This is a neuter adjective functioning as a noun.
- 20:17Because it is neuter, it grammatically cannot refer to
- 20:20Jesus Christ at His second coming.
- 20:21If Paul wanted to refer to the return of Jesus, the personal
- 20:25Incarnate Son of God, he would have been required by the rules
- 20:29of Greek syntax to use a masculine pronoun.
- 20:31He did not do that by deliberately using the neuter.
- 20:35He is referring to a completed thing, an object, or a finalized
- 20:39state. You have to look at the contrast
- 20:41he is setting up in the immediate context in verse 9 he
- 20:45says for we know in part and we prophecy in part.
- 20:48He uses the phrase ecamaris meaning partial things, the.
- 20:51Fragmented piece meal. Glimpses of divine truth that
- 20:54the early Church was receiving. He contrasts those partial
- 20:57fragmented things with titelion, the perfect completed thing.
- 21:01In the context of partial fragmented revelation, the
- 21:03perfect thing that completes the picture must logically be the
- 21:07finalized written revelation of God.
- 21:09So the outside force, the external agent that arrives and
- 21:13actively a polishes the partial prophecies and the piece meal
- 21:16words of knowledge is the completed Canon of scripture.
- 21:20Once the New Covenant scriptures were finalized.
- 21:23Once the Apostle John finished writing Revelation and the Canon
- 21:26was closed, the perfect thing had arrived.
- 21:29The scaffolding of temporary prophetic utterances was no
- 21:32longer needed because the structural masterpiece of
- 21:34written revelation was complete. The exegesis leaves no room for
- 21:38confusion. The arrival of the completed
- 21:40closed Canon actively rendered the partial gifts inoperative.
- 21:43God did not intend for His Church to be built perpetually
- 21:46on a shifting foundation of fragmented, spontaneous
- 21:49prophecies. He provided the infallible,
- 21:51inerrant, completed written word as the permanent foundation for
- 21:55the rest of Church history. I think we need to on this
- 21:58realization about what the written text actually provides.
- 22:01Because someone might hear this grammatical breakdown and feel a
- 22:03sense of loss. They might think, well, that
- 22:06sounds incredibly dry. We traded the exciting
- 22:08miraculous signs, the audible voices, and the spectacular
- 22:11miracles for a static book of rules.
- 22:13But the sources we are studying highlight how this transition
- 22:17points us directly to Christological fulfillment.
- 22:19If the written closed Canon is the perfect thing, it is not
- 22:23just a dry rule book. It is the comprehensive,
- 22:26flawless revelation of Jesus Christ Himself.
- 22:29You have to trace how Paul defines wisdom throughout the
- 22:32entirety of First Corinthians to see this.
- 22:35The world, particularly the Greek culture in Corinth,
- 22:38measures wisdom by status, by rhetorical skill, by
- 22:42philosophical dominance, and by visible success.
- 22:45But Paul states plainly in chapter one that Christ
- 22:47crucified is the wisdom of God. The gospel overturns all the
- 22:51worldly criteria. True wisdom is not discovered by
- 22:54human reason. Climbing upward.
- 22:55It is not found in an ecstatic trance in a Pagan temple.
- 22:59It is revealed by God and centered entirely in the
- 23:01crucified and risen Christ. So the completed Canon is the
- 23:05perfect unflawed revelation of that true wisdom.
- 23:08It gives us Christ completely. The writer of Hebrews makes this
- 23:11very point in the majestic opening verses of his letter
- 23:14Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 and 2.
- 23:16He writes long ago, at many times and in many ways, God
- 23:20spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days
- 23:23He has spoken to us by His Son. Jesus is the final word.
- 23:28The Saints who lived under the Old Covenant had shadows, types,
- 23:31and localized prophecies. The early church in the book of
- 23:34Acts had partial prophecies and words of knowledge to lay the
- 23:37structural foundation. But we, living after the close
- 23:40of the Canon, have the complete final written testimony of the
- 23:44Sun. Which is why demanding new
- 23:46prophecies or demanding the gift of tongues today is such a
- 23:49severe theological error. Our sources frame this very
- 23:52strongly, and rightly so. To demand new revelation is to
- 23:56imply that the 66 books of the closed Canon are insufficient
- 23:59for the believer. It is an insult to the majesty
- 24:02of the Savior to look at His completed, perfectly preserved
- 24:04written word and say, that is not enough for me.
- 24:07I need something more. I need an audible voice.
- 24:09The entire closed Canon is Christological in its focus.
- 24:13It perfectly displays the unsearchable riches of Christ.
- 24:15When you grasp the magnitude of that, you realize that the
- 24:18cessation of the sign gifts is not a loss of spiritual vitality
- 24:22at all. It is the glorious triumph of
- 24:25biblical sufficiency that demands a response from us
- 24:28today. What does all of this 1st
- 24:30century history, this detailed Greek grammar?
- 24:34What does it mean for you as you listen to this right now?
- 24:37Because we are not just doing a historical autopsy here.
- 24:40We are not just cataloguing ancient Greek verbs for academic
- 24:44trivia. This has massive practical
- 24:46implications for how we view modern evangelicalism and how we
- 24:50conduct our own spiritual lives. It absolutely does.
- 24:53The application of this text is a direct, unavoidable
- 24:55confrontation with the that runs rampant in the modern church.
- 24:59It calls us to explicitly reject the claims of the charismatic
- 25:02movement, the prosperity gospel, and this pervasive, highly
- 25:07subjective God told me culture. You hear it all the time in
- 25:10modern Christian circles, people claiming God gave them a
- 25:13specific audible word about taking a new job, entering a
- 25:16relationship, or making a church decision.
- 25:19But if we understand First Corinthians 13 correctly, those
- 25:21claims are dangerous counterfeits.
- 25:23They bypass the supreme authority of the closed Canon,
- 25:26and worse, they bind the consciences of other believers
- 25:29with subjective feelings. The world insists that you need
- 25:32an emotional high or a mystical whisper in the dark to know God
- 25:36is real. But Christ prayed in John 17.
- 25:40Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth.
- 25:44The truth is objective and it is written down.
- 25:47Think about the God told me culture through this analogy.
- 25:50Oh, the restaurant analogy? Yes, let us look at that.
- 25:52Claiming God told me for personal decision is like going
- 25:55to a wood renowned master chef's restaurant.
- 25:58You sit down and the chef brings out this magnificent, perfectly
- 26:01prepared meal just for you. But instead of eating it, you
- 26:04push it aside and you reach into your pocket and you pull out a
- 26:07squished, stale sandwich you made three days ago.
- 26:10And you eat that instead. It is absurd.
- 26:12You are ignoring the Feast of the Written Word in favor of a
- 26:16subjective, highly fallible feeling.
- 26:18Here's another way to picture it.
- 26:19Imagine you were trying to walk through a dense, highly
- 26:22dangerous pitch Black Forest at night.
- 26:25Someone offers you a method to find your way.
- 26:28They tell you to rely on momentary lightning flashes.
- 26:32Every once in a while a bolt of lightning strikes, and for a
- 26:34fraction of a second the forest is illuminated.
- 26:37You get a fragmented, momentary glimpse of the trees around you,
- 26:40but it is disorienting, unpredictable and entirely out
- 26:44of your control. You cannot plan a safe route
- 26:46based on lightning flashes. Now imagine someone hands you a
- 26:49high definition, incredibly detailed topographical map of
- 26:53the entire forest, along with a bright, steady flashlight.
- 26:57The map shows every elevation change, every hazard, and the
- 27:01exact path to safety. That is the difference between
- 27:04seeking subjective mystical impressions and relying on the
- 27:08closed cannon. We do not need unpredictable
- 27:10lightning flashes when God has handed us the perfect permanent
- 27:14topographical map of Scripture. To demand the lightning flash is
- 27:17to throw away the map. That analogy illustrates the
- 27:20danger of prioritizing experience over the text.
- 27:23Claiming private revelation elevates our fallible human
- 27:26intuition above the infallible, unchanging text.
- 27:30But there is a tremendously positive application here as
- 27:33well. The cessation of the sign gifts
- 27:35points us to the beauty of God's appointed methods for growth,
- 27:39what theologians call the ordinary means of grace.
- 27:42Let us make sure we define that clearly for the listener.
- 27:44When we talk about the ordinary means of grace, we are talking
- 27:47about the designated, unflashy, everyday methods God has
- 27:51promised to use to strengthen our faith.
- 27:53True spiritual maturity is not found in chasing an emotional
- 27:56high at a weekend conference or seeking A spectacular,
- 28:00inexplicable sign. It is found in the rigorous
- 28:03discipline study of the written text.
- 28:05It is found in sitting under the faithful expository preaching of
- 28:09the word week after week. It is found in disciplined
- 28:11prayer and in participating in the ordinances of the local
- 28:14church like baptism and the Lord's Supper.
- 28:17God uses these ordinary, regular, unmiraculous practices
- 28:21to conform us to the image of Christ.
- 28:23The Corinthians wanted the spectacular because it fed their
- 28:25pride. God gave us the ordinary because
- 28:28it requires faith and builds genuine humility.
- 28:30It is about trusting that God knows precisely what we need.
- 28:34We do not need to invent new ways to hear from Him.
- 28:37We do not need to try and recreate the scaffolding of the
- 28:401st century. We need to live faithfully
- 28:42inside the beautiful finished building that has already been
- 28:45constructed by the apostles and prophets.
- 28:48The miraculous gifts were temporary tools for a church in
- 28:51a massive historical transition. They were sovereignly, actively
- 28:55replaced by the perfect, completed, written Word of God.
- 28:59And that reality leaves us with a final thought, something that
- 29:02should challenge every single one of us regarding our daily
- 29:06relationship with the Bible. Consider this scenario for a
- 29:08moment. If we truly believed that
- 29:11reading the closed Canon of Scripture carries the exact same
- 29:14weight, authority, and divine reality as God parting the
- 29:18clouds and speaking to us audibly right this second, how
- 29:22differently would we treat our daily reading tomorrow morning?
- 29:25That is the question we will leave you to ponder as you look
- 29:27at your own Bible. Today.
- 29:29We want to thank you for joining us for this deep dive on
- 29:32Reformed thinking.