NOTES for Co1 12:7
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.