NOTES for Co1 14:26-40

As we can see, Paul is not against prophetic callings and not against glossolalia. This is understandable: if God gives a person a revelation, can he, God's servant, oppose it? But the apostle is certain: God will not destroy the church community by His revelation. Paul is not against any charismatic manifestations, as we would call them today, but on one condition: they must not destroy either the person himself or the church community to which that person belongs. It is in this sense that the apostle says that "the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets." And the issue here is not bringing spiritual life and charismatic phenomena within the framework of some formal church discipline.

The issue is that every prophecy, and every revelation in general, is a divine-human matter. God does not disregard the human being; He takes into account his abilities and capacities. Of course, if it were otherwise, a situation would become entirely possible in which a person simply disappears as a person, losing himself in the flow of God's power, which surpasses him in every respect. This has happened in every age; historians of religion call such ecstasy orgiastic.

Orgiastic ecstasies have been known to people since the Paleolithic. The world is permeated by God's presence, which is revealed in it as supernatural divine power, and people in every age have wanted to share in it and to possess it. But it is not for a human being to possess God, and all such attempts usually ended with the person becoming a plaything in the hands of a power far greater than himself.

If, however, a person sought God, then not only God's power but also God's will was revealed to him, and then God Himself revealed His power to the person to the extent necessary for that person's spiritual formation. That is why genuine revelation has always been a divine-human process: God does not suppress or destroy human nature; on the contrary, He reveals it in all possible fullness. And here the conscious participation of the person is absolutely necessary.

But for many people in every age it has been much simpler to give themselves over to the power of God's force, behind which they did not sense the presence of a Person: such an experience does not involve responsibility, without which there is no genuine communion with God. And Paul, understanding this perfectly, does not want to encourage anything of the sort. He knows that genuine spiritual life involves conscious communion with God, not turbulent ecstasies that impose no obligations and give almost nothing to the person.