NOTES for Co1 12:1-11

Returning again to the description of the life of the Kingdom, Paul says that the Kingdom is wholly permeated by the breath, the Spirit, of God (vv. 4-6). And Jesus is the Messiah promised by God, through whom this Kingdom was revealed to the world, so that anyone who knows what the Kingdom is will never renounce Jesus and will not be mistaken about His ministry (v. 3). As for life in the Kingdom, it is nothing other than the result of the action of that breath of God by which the Kingdom is permeated, from the Throne to the last speck of dust. In the Kingdom there is no place where this breath is not felt, but when it touches a person it can affect him in different ways. A person changes quite really under the influence of such a touch, but the changes are each time as unique and unrepeatable as each person is unique and as God's design for each of us is unrepeatable.

From here comes the difference in gifts and callings about which the apostle writes (vv. 8-11). What they have in common is that not one of these gifts and not one of these callings can be carried out by human strength alone without God's help. In essence, the matter is not so much the possibilities and abilities of the person himself as divine-human co-creation, when God turns a person into a perfect instrument that He can use to solve tasks of which a person who does not know God's help could not even think. And only God knows how He manages to solve this task without turning the person into a blind tool and while allowing him to remain a person in all fullness. A person living in the Kingdom.

Speaking about the fact that nobody will call Jesus "Lord", Paul means of course confessing Him Messiah. As we see, in this case the apostle expressed a little differently the same idea, which rings in the words of the Savior which say that nobody will come to Him, if he is not attracted by His Heavenly Father. Indeed, Jesus was not so similar to the Messiah of the traditional representations of the people during His earthly ministry, but His Kingdom turned out so much far from what waited the leaders of the Pharisaic movement, and the rabbis scholars, that to recognize in Him the Messiah was possible only having given up completely all the national and religious traditions. Such a spiritual effort for man is possible only by a special all time revelation, without which one will not really see the Messiah in Jesus. God's breath has to touch the heart of man so that he can say as Peter: "you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God". But indeed, the same Peter did not seen immediately in His master the Messiah, although at the moment, when his confession rang, he already succeeded to stay near Him more than a day. As we see, in order to accept Jesus not simply as a Prophet and Master, but as the Messiah and the Son of God, it is necessary to pass a defined spiritual way. And this way can completely pass somewhere next to Jesus, maybe very near to Him and near His Church. It is in particular of such "walking beside" that appear the converts, the most spiritually prepared for Christian life: because their decisions are not usually precipitated or without thinking. And of course God Himself with His breath touches the heart of such people, bringing them closer to the Kingdom and to the One, Who brought the Kingdom to the world. Such people are led by the spirit of God, and will never of course say anything bad on Jesus of Nazareth, even if they will not see in Him the Messiah. Because they are these "pure hearts", of which the Savior said that they "will see God".

Paul mentions one of the chief qualities of Christian life: the continuous action in the life of each Christian of God's breath, the Holy Spirit. As is clear from the apostle's words, neither spirit nor grace exists "in general" or is given just like that, just in case, "so that it is there." The point is always relations between a person and God, a person and Christ. And the dynamic of these relations is such that full communion between a person and Christ is possible only when it is included in the context of the relations that unite Christ Himself with His Heavenly Father.

If a person is aware of his relations with God, God can reveal to him and help him recognize the reality of His relations with His Son, and then the person understands who Christ is in God's eyes. If this awareness is absent, then in Christ a person will see only an ordinary human being like himself. But if awareness has come, if God has revealed to a person the spiritual dynamic of which Paul speaks, then his whole life, if the person is consistent in what concerns the spiritual path, is included in it and determined by it. Then everything a person has in life, as well as everything he does, becomes part of this dynamic and is determined by it. The person begins, as Christians usually say, to "live according to the Spirit." It is not enough, as some people think, simply to sanctify what one already has or what one already does. It is not enough because by sanctification people often understand a kind of offering to God of what one already has, whether property, talents and abilities, knowledge, or some activity, as people usually say, "for the glory of God."

But in such cases the matter is usually something the person chooses for himself, if we are speaking of activity, or something he himself has acquired or received from God for himself, if we are speaking of knowledge, talents, and abilities. The person remains with what is his own and offers this own thing to God. The apostle has something else in mind: he speaks of what exists only in the context of the spiritual dynamic that determines a person's relations with God and with Christ, and is derived from this dynamic. Here it is not the person who offers God what he has, but God who offers the person what he will need for service. At first glance this difference can appear formal, but in reality it is precisely here that the question is decided: who will determine a person's life, the person himself or God through Christ, who alone can open for a person the road into the Kingdom.

Much has been said and written about church ministries. Much has also been written about grace, about the gifts of the Spirit, about callings to ministries, and other things of this kind. But often grace is discussed separately, the gifts of the Spirit separately, and ministries separately. Paul, as we can see, connects all this into one whole. And no wonder, since the matter is indeed one and the same reality: the breath of God, with which the Kingdom is permeated and which enters the heart of every inhabitant of this Kingdom.

One often hears and reads that grace or the Holy Spirit forms the basis of the Christian's spiritual life, that every member of the Church has them, while ministry is already something special, given only to the chosen. Sometimes people go still further and say that even grace belongs not to all Christians, that to be a bearer and, so to speak, a "distributor" of grace is a special ministry, and so on. But if Christianity is still not some new "religion of the Kingdom," but life in the Kingdom, as Jesus Himself founded it, then it becomes obvious that graceless and spiritless Christians cannot exist by definition. A "graceless Christian" is an oxymoron, and so is a "spiritless Christian." For the breath of God, if we speak of life in the Kingdom, permeates the whole person; it is in fact the environment of the Kingdom. Just as air cannot fail to enter a person living on earth, and a person cannot live without this air entering him, so the breath of God cannot fail to enter the heart of an inhabitant of the Kingdom, and he cannot live without this breath. Such life, properly speaking, is the only thing that could be called Christianity in the proper sense of the word.

But life presupposes not only breathing, but also other activity, and the life of the Kingdom is no exception. Of course, there are periods or special cases when a person is capable only of breathing, and even that may be considered an achievement. But in that case one has to speak of a very grave condition, perhaps even one near death. Normally, however, a person, besides breathing, is usually engaged in some activity important for God and for the Kingdom. This, properly speaking, is what should be called "Christian ministry," and the moment when God tells a person living in the Kingdom exactly what, as an inhabitant of the Kingdom, he should do, should be called a "Christian calling." It is no wonder that for the apostle all these things are interconnected: they are all different sides of one life. The life of the Kingdom.

One of the strongest temptations of the believer is the absolutization of his experience of the relationship with God: God acts so and so with me, gives me this and that, and it doesn’t happen otherwise, because God is the same for all. Apostle Paul objects: although God is the same, but the gifts, the services and the actions are different, because God is infinite, inexhaustible and bountiful. it is very important for all of us not to try (mentally) to limit God in His possibilities, but to humbly recognize His liberty and with gratitude identify His good gifts and actions in what is unexpected and unusual to us.

Often, when it comes for example about grace or the gifts of the Spirit, we look at both as a kind of divine energy, which is given to man, as a certain gift, for a more intense spiritual life. Sometimes, moreover, to it, is added again the understanding of the fact that the gifts of the Spirit are something significant, that God gives to man for the resolution of certain tasks, set by the very God. With such an understanding, it turns out that God in the form of spiritual gift gives to His servant certain necessary tool for the accomplishment of the work which is entrusted to him. Certainly, such a relation towards the gifts of the Spirit is in a certain degree just, and it absolutely has the right to exist. But does this exhaust all the depth of the gift of God as a spiritual phenomenon? For, with such an approach, the gift of God, the gift of the Spirit is seen, as something isolated, concerning only God and the person, to whom the gift was given.

Of course, if to speak about a work entrusted to man by God, it is necessary to recognize that it always concerns not only the servant himself, but also other people, at least, in the church, to which belongs this servant. But it is necessary to speak not only about it. Because every gift of the Spirit belongs not only to a concrete church community, but also the whole Church, being a part of this Kingdom, of which the inhabitants are each Christian, of course, if not Christian by name only.

And the gifts of the Spirit are given to man, particularly as an inhabitant of the Kingdom, in the context of those relationships between him and God, between him and Christ, between him and the other Christians, who are also part of this kingdom. Even certain earthly gifts make sense only in case the one, who receives them, does not interrupt the relationship with the one to whom he received these gifts. And in the Kingdom, no gift in itself, out of the context of the relations connecting the one, who received the gift with the One, Who offered, out of the context of the entire life of the Kingdom, will have sense.

And the grace, and the gifts of the Spirit remind righteousness, which is impossible to accumulate, which exists only in the dynamics, so that it is impossible " to set aside in reserve " the deeds of righteousness, in order to use them afterward to obtain righteousness, when the reasons for it already do not exist any more. And any gift of the Spirit remains reality only as long as remain reality the relations linking the one who receives the gift with the One, from Whom he received it. As long as he remains inhabitant of the Kingdom. For, it is impossible of tearing a piece of the Kingdom and take along with oneself. Here it is all or nothing.