DURING his second missionary tour Paul, by much arduous labor over some eighteen months, raised up a strong church in Corinth. Later he wrote to the Corinthians from Ephesus. The opening words of the first letter to the Corinthians contain some interesting expressions.
He speaks to "them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 1:2). The sanctified are the dedicated or consecrated ones who in the same verse are "called to be saints." Corinth was a troublesome church in some respects, but it had a solid body of God's saints. No church is without saints.
After the customary salutations Paul refers to the grace of Christ conferred on the saints, who were thereby "enriched ... in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you."
"The testimony of Christ" doubtless refers to Paul's preaching of Christ, which brought upon them the power of the Holy Spirit. The context of the verse reveals a church that is enjoying the gifts of the Spirit and "waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." The gift of utterance, or ability to express aptly the knowledge of Christ, is one of the great secrets of the power and success of the early church.
The Holy Ghost was to guide the church into all truth (John 16:13). This obviously did not imply an immediate, complete, and final act, but a process by which truth came in the measure of human devotion, perception, and assimilation. This promise has never met its final fulfillment, for every believer and every church throughout the ages is comprehended in its scope and operation: "Jesus promised His disciples, 'The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you.' 'When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: . . . and He will show you things to come.' John 14:26; 16:13. Scripture plainly teaches that these promises, so far from being limited to apostolic days, extend to the church of Christ in all ages. The Saviour assures His followers, 'I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.' Matt. 28:20. And Paul declares that the gifts and manifestations of the Spirit were set in the church 'for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.' Eph. 4:12, 13."—The Great Controversy, Introduction, pp. viii, ix.
The various gifts of the Holy Spirit are to be sought after: "Covet earnestly the best gifts" (1 Cor. 12:31). "Desire spiritual gifts" (1 Cor. 14:1). On all sides it is admitted that this intensity of desire for the Holy Spirit's operation is sorely needed among Christians of today. We cannot avoid our own responsibility in this apathy.
Closely related to the operation of spiritual gifts there were, and must be, in the church "the unity of the Spirit" (Eph. 4: 3), the "fellowship of the Spirit" (Phil. 2: 1)—unity and fellowship between the receptive mind, the prepared life—without which greater infilling is impossible.
"If God's professed people would receive the light as it shines upon them from His word, they would reach that unity for which Christ prayed, that which the apostle describes, 'the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.' 'There is/ he says, 'one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism.' Eph. 4:3-5."-—Ibid., p. 379.
Knowledge must be transformed into practice by the operation of divine grace. Fullness of light means a full life, and a full blessing. Fullness of light does not mean that any man or any church has all the light there is in God, but all that man is at any given moment capable of absorbing, understanding, living. This is the meaning of daily life to the Christian (see Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 561).
The light that has been cast upon our way by the gift of the Spirit of Prophecy through Ellen G. White has been an untold blessing to the cause. By Spirit of Prophecy counsels our work has been built up throughout the world. Our organizational progress has been based upon personal spiritual relationship to the counsel of God's Spirit. Despite opposition, misrepresentation, fanaticism, the Advent cause has spread through the earth. Its growth will be in the measure of our loyalty to the whole truth, and in the degree of our surrender to the Spirit's guidance in these last phases of God's work.
May 20, 1961, is the date assigned as Spirit of Prophecy Sabbath. Material has been provided for our church services, and we hope it may be used to bring a blessing to our members. So shall the church become spiritually revived and empowered for better living and greater witness.
H. W. L.
