Evidence of the Gift of Holy Spirit: A Way of Life, Part 1
Estimated reading time: 13 minutes
The Evidence of the Spirit—A Way of Life
The manifestations of the Spirit are to be a way of life for us. The manifestations are given to “every man” (every born-again believer); we should use them.
We’re going to look at how the manifestations of the Spirit work together.
Evidence.
Imagine being in a courtroom where your adversary, Satan, is your accuser, and Jesus Christ is your defense attorney. The evidence is already there. The manifestations are the evidence that you have Christ in you and that the price has been paid. Imagine the judge, God, saying, “Not guilty! Now go and tell others.”
Because of what Jesus Christ accomplished for us and on our behalf, God sees us as righteous, as not guilty, and we have everything that we’ll ever need to walk with God in this world. The manifestations are part of the package deal that we’ve been given.
Look for a profiting opportunity.
Let’s take a closer look at 1 Corinthians 12:7 from the Aramaic.
1 Corinthians 12:7 APNT:
Now the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one as it is profitable for him.
The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every born-again believer.
Hebrew and Aramaic are action-oriented languages, and the actions underneath the words help us to understand the meaning.
In the Aramaic, the word picture for the word “manifestation” means you’re supposed “to lift off the cover.”
I think of a covered pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove. Someone walks into the kitchen and says, “That smells good!” They walk over to the stove, and lift off the cover and exclaim, “Ah! Spaghetti sauce!”
Imagine lifting off the cover over the Spirit, not so that you can just admire it, but so that you can do something with it. We uncover the spaghetti sauce so that we can use it. We uncover the Spirit with the manifestations so that we can use it.
When Samuel was first learning to hear the Word of the Lord, it says that the Lord was not yet revealed to him.
1 Samuel 3:7 (NRSV):
Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
The meaning is similar to “not yet manifested to him.” God wasn’t yet “uncovered” to him. It can be like that for us the first time we are conscious of God speaking to us.
The first thing to remember is that manifestation is “to lift off the cover.”
1 Corinthians 12:7 APNT:
Now the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one as it is profitable for him.
The manifestation of the spirit is given; it’s not something we operate on demand.
Think about a cell phone. It’s on, charged up, and available. But you don’t control when someone calls you. The caller determines that.
God is the one who gives the manifestation.
1 Corinthians 12:7 APNT:
Now the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one as it is profitable for him.
The word “profitable” is a noun, more like “profiting.” What’s left over after the manifestation is given is profit. The profiting here is sort of a blank to be filled in; what is this profit? Does it mean there is some particular special profit for each different manifestation?
It is a “profiting” situation or a profiting opportunity. If I walk into a room and someone is very sick, they have a need and that’s a profiting time. It’s an opportunity for the manifestations to start working, for God to energize them to help (we don’t operate them; the Spirit gives them).
When the letters in the Aramaic are put together, we get a picture of “to see the enemy first.” A profit/help/advantage/benefit is to see the enemy first.
The manifestation of the Spirit is given or energized to each one when there is a profiting time, a benefiting time. That could be anytime.
The manifestations are listed here in 1 Corinthians 12 in a way that shows how they work with the profiting time. There are two important points here. The first point is that it’s given to you; think “is given to me.”
1 Corinthians 12:8 APNT:
There is a word of wisdom that is given to him [to me] by the Spirit, now for another [“profiting” by the figure of speech Ellipses], a word of knowledge by the same Spirit,
You could say it’s given to you personally to make one’s own. Every time it says “is given,” you could repeat that, “is given to me.”
The second important point is where it says “for another.” For another what? For another benefiting time, another profiting time.
Some people fill in the ellipses by saying it’s given to another person. However, it was already stated in verse 7 that the manifestation is given to each one, to every person. So the missing detail in the ellipses cannot be to another person. It also cannot be another kind of profit. It’s about another time or situation. The manifestations are always profitable, but they are given for a profiting time or a benefiting time.
The English word “another” in this section of 1 Corinthians is translated from two different Greek words. With that information, we see that the list is divided into three different groups of manifestations. First, there are two, then five, then two more.
1 Corinthians 12:8 KJV:
For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another [allos, another of the same kind] the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
The first group (allos, another of the same kind):
- Word of wisdom
- Word of knowledge
Those two are the same kind.
The second group:
1 Corinthians 12:9 KJV:
To another [heteros, another of a different kind]….
The list has two different kinds.
1 Corinthians 12:9–10a KJV:
To another [heteros] faith by the same Spirit; to another [allos] the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; 10 To another [allos]the working of miracles; to another [allos] prophecy; to another [allos] discerning of spirits;
The second group contains:
- Faith
- Gifts of healing
- Working of miracles
- Prophecy
- Discerning of spirits
Those five are the same kind.
1 Corinthians 12:10b KJV:
to another [heteros, another of a different kind] divers kinds of tongues; to another [allos, another of the same kind] the interpretation of tongues:
The third group:
- Kinds of tongues
- Interpretation of tongues
Many people teach the groups as three in each group, but that’s how the manifestations work; that’s not how they are described to be used as profit.
This section is about what’s the profit; it’s about what you do in the profiting time.
Let’s call the first section “information” because that’s how they are used in the profiting time.
Information manifestations:
- Word of wisdom
- Word of knowledge
Action manifestations:
- Faith
- Healing
- Miracles
- Prophecy
- Discerning of Spirits
Encouragement manifestations:
- Speaking in tongues
- Interpretation of tongues
The main point for now is that in the profiting time, you see the enemy first, and the manifestations are designed so that they provide or enable information, action, and encouragement. The main thing is that we can’t separate how they all work together.
Once we know a little about each one and how they all work together, we see that this is a lifestyle, a way of life. The only reason to talk about each one of them is to show us how they all work together.
When my cell phone is on, I can get a photo, a text message, a voicemail, or a phone call. The manifestations are like nine different ways God can communicate to us from the one Spirit. It’s God’s job to figure out which one I need and when.
Let’s look at a passage that helps us to see how the manifestations all work together. This is the record of the man and his son that was brought to the disciples while Jesus was at the Mount of Transfiguration.
Mark 9:17–19 APNT:
17 And one of the crowd answered and said, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, because he has a spirit that does not speak.
18 And whenever it grabs him, it knocks him down and he foams and gnashes his teeth and he languishes. And I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.”
19 Jesus answered and said to him, “Oh faithless generation! How long must I be with you and how long must I endure you? Bring him to me.”
Here we have a need, a profiting situation. The disciples had looked at the boy shaking, gnashing his teeth, they looked at the senses, and doubt or fear arose in them. But Jesus said, “Bring him to me.”
What did Jesus do? When coming into a profiting situation, you cannot go by your five senses.
Mark 9:20–22 APNT:
20 And they brought him to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it knocked him down and he fell on the ground and was violently shaken, and he foamed.
21 And Jesus asked his father, “How long [has it been] since [he was] this way?” He said to him, “Since his youth.
22 And many times it has thrown him into the fire and into the water to destroy him, but whatever you are able [to do], help me and have compassion on us.”
The boy’s father was overwhelmed by the evidence of the senses. Here is a profiting opportunity.
Mark 9:22 KJV:
And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.
The boy’s father says to Jesus, if you can do anything, if you can help us, have compassion on us. He’s putting an “if” in there.
Mark 9:23 APNT:
Jesus said to him, “If you are able to believe, everything will be possible to him who believes.”
The best Greek manuscripts don’t have the first instance of the word “believe” in this verse. Here are a few good modern translations of this verse.
Mark 9:23:
(NRSV) Jesus said to him, “If you are able! All things can be done for the one who believes.”
(ESV) And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”
(NET) Then Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you are able?’ All things are possible for the one who believes.”
(NASB) But Jesus said to him, “ ‘If You can?’ All things are possible for the one who believes.”
(NIrV) “ ‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for the one who believes.”
(NLT) “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”
Jesus turned it around. Jesus is not putting it back on the boy’s father to believe. It’s like Jesus is repeating the question, “If you can” and he’s like, what do you mean if I can, I’m the son of God; of course I can! If you come to me for help you must believe that I am the answer you are looking for; I can do this. Everything is possible to him who believes.
Think about it. If the father had been able to believe, his son would have already been healed. All the father had to do was put his trust in Jesus. That’s why the father immediately cried out, “I believe.”
Mark 9:24 APNT:
And immediately the father of the boy cried out, mourning, and said, “I believe, my Lord! Help the lack of my faith.”
The father was finally saying, “I believe you can heal him.” He was trusting that God would tell Jesus what the boy needed.
Mark 9:25–27 APNT:
25 And when Jesus saw that the people ran and gathered about him, he rebuked that unclean spirit and said to it, “Dumb spirit that does not speak, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again.”
26 And that demon cried out and he bruised him much and came out. And he was like a dead man, so that many said, “He is dead.”
27 But Jesus took him by his hand and raised him up.
Jesus was not looking at the senses, and the boy was completely healed.
Later, the disciples wanted to know why they couldn’t cast the spirit out.
Mark 9:28–29 APNT:
28 Now when Jesus entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why were we not able to cast it out?”
29 He said to them, “This kind cannot be cast out by anything except by fasting and by prayer.”
They weren’t fasting here. The true fast is described in Isaiah.
Isaiah 58:5–7 KJV:
5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? 6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
When we are in circumstances where we are unable, we need to change our focus to God and Christ via the spirit. See the enemy first. Loose the bands of wickedness. Let the oppressed go free.
Isaiah 58:8–9a KJV:
8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward. 9 Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.
That’s the part the disciples didn’t do. They had seen miracles, but they had been seeing them through their five senses, and were still relying on their five senses. What they should have been doing is looking to God to tell them where the enemy is, how to fix this,
Scripture References
Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked (NASB) taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NET) are from The NET Bible® Copyright © 1996, 2019 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. www.netbible.com. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked (NIrV) The Holy Bible, New International Reader’s Version®, NIrV®. Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1998, 2014 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188, USA. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked (NRSV) are from New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition, copyright © 2021 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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