William Burkitt Notes and Observations - 1 Corinthians 12:4 - 12:4

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

William Burkitt Notes and Observations - 1 Corinthians 12:4 - 12:4


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

That is, there is a great variety and diversity of spiritual gifts, but it is the same Spirit from whence they all proceed and flow; and there are different administrations and offices in the church, but it is the same Lord who hath appointed all these offices; and there are diversities of operations performed by these officers in the church, but it is the same God who worketh in them all.

Here gifts are ascribed to the Holy Ghost, administrations to the Lord Christ, and operations to God the Father; but in all these there are great diversities both of kinds and degrees; they differ in their nature, extent, and use.

Thus it is with reference to spiritual gifts: but in the case of sanctifying graces it was far otherwise; these are all bestowed jointly, or not at all.

God cannot give humility to one, purity to another, charity alone to a third; because there is such an inseparable union and alliance among the graces of the Spirit, (a concatenation of graces, as some call it,) that where one really is, there all the rest must be.

Hence probably it is, why the whole of religion is sometimes expressed by one particular duty of it, sometimes by faith, sometimes by hope, sometimes by repentance, sometimes by charity; because the combination of these saving graces is such, that the mentioning of one implies and concludes all the rest.