NOTES for Co1 12:4-6

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.

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.

Many were said and written about the religious ministries. Many were also written about grace, the gifts of the Spirit, vocations to the ministry and other similar things. But very often, is spoken about grace separately, separately about the gifts of the Spirit, and separately about the ministries. Paul, as seen, connects them all together. And it is not surprising: because it is really about the same reality, about the breath of God, which pervades the Kingdom and which penetrates into the heart of every inhabitant of this Kingdom.

It happens sometimes to hear and to read that grace or the Holy Spirit form the basis of the spiritual life of the Christian, every member of the church has them, but here is, the ministry is already something special, it is only given to the elected. Sometimes people go even further and say that even grace is inherent not to all Christians, that to be carrier and, let’s say, "the distributor" of grace is a special ministry, etc. But, if Christianity still is not a certain new "religion of the Kingdom", but life in the Kingdom, such as Jesus Himself established it, then it becomes obvious that there can not be by definition graceless and unspiritual Christians. "Graceless Christian" is an oxymoron, and " the unspiritual Christian" - too. Because the breath of God, if we talk about the life in the Kingdom, penetrates the whole man, it is actually the environment of the Kingdom.

As it is impossible for the air not penetrate inside the man living on Earth, and for man not to live without that air penetrating inside, the same in the heart of the inhabitant of the Kingdom it is impossible not to penetrate the breath of God, and man himself can’t live without this breath. Only such a life, in fact could be called Christianity in the proper sense of the word. But life does not suppose simply a breath, but also other activities, and the life of the Kingdom is not an exception. There are of course moments or just special cases, when man can only breathe, and that can be even considered as an achievement.

But in such case it is necessary to speak about a very critical state, perhaps, even dying. In a normal case, the man, in addition to breathing, is usually even occupied by a certain activity that is important for God and for the Kingdom. That is what in fact should be called "a Christian ministry ", and call “Christian vocation” the moment, when God tells the man living in the Kingdom, what exactly he should do, as a resident of the Kingdom. It is not surprising that for the Apostle, all these things are interconnected: indeed they are all different parts of the same life. The life of the Kingdom.

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.