WWUTT 1583 No One Can Say ”Jesus is Lord” Without the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3)

If a person truly believes that Jesus is Lord, well, it is by the Spirit of God that has revealed this truth to them. And they will continue in that truth until their dying day and forever, when we understand.

The text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Paul’s Introduction to Spiritual Gifts in 1 Corinthians 12

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 1 Corinthians. We're in chapter 12, and I'll pick up where we left off yesterday. But to start off, let's read through these first 11 verses the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth.

Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that when you were pagans, you were being led astray to the mute idols, however.

You were led.

Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, Jesus is accursed, and no one can say, Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.

And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. And there are varieties of workings, but the same God, who works everything in everyone. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what is profitable.

For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit. To someone else, faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit.

And to another the workings of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to someone else various kinds of tongues, and to another the translation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually, just as He wills.

Now that's important even, and I put the emphasis on He wills, because when we're talking about spiritual gifts, this is all according to the will of God. A lot of times the abuse of spiritual gifts is something we think that we do.

Well God gave me this gift, I can do this. No, the gifting is all by the will of God, and the use of that gift is by His will as.

Well.

We'll talk about that more as we go through this chapter. We're up to verse three today, a confusing verse, and I needed a little bit of help on.

This.

Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. I'll come back to that in just a moment. Quickly looking again at verses one and two.

Idolatry, Paganism, and What Leads People Astray

Now concerning spiritual gifts, so there's the heading of this particular chapter, and really this chapter goes through chapter 14. So we're looking at 12, 13, and 14 as all one thing. Chapter 13, which is the love chapter, kind of breaks from what Paul is talking about regarding spiritual gifts.

He talks about it heavily in 12 and 14. He comes back to it in 14. 13 is him teaching a more excellent way, because that's the way we conclude chapter 12. And I will show you yet a more excellent way.

And then what is that more excellent way? It is the way of love, which even in chapter 13, spiritual gifts are mentioned there as.

Well.

But if we do not have love, then whatever gifting we think we have is nothing. We're just a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. So as we start here in chapter 12, we're beginning a three-chapter series on spiritual gifts.

Concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. So Paul is educating, he is informing about these gifts and the proper exercise of these.

Gifts.

They are for the purpose of building up. Verse 7, to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for what is profitable. Now notice he says, to each one, verse 7, but to each one is given the manifestation.

Of the spirit.

So everybody who is a Christian, who is a follower of Jesus Christ and has the spirit of God is going to have a spiritual gift. It's not always easy to know exactly what that is. And so you may need some help from your brothers and sisters in the Lord that can help you to see what gifting you have and what your service would be to the church that you are a part of.

But we're all called to something. We've all been gifted in some way by the spirit of God that has been given to us. So let us use that gift for what is profitable means for what is building up the body of Christ, what is helping to build and strengthen even the entire church.

So as Paul is educating here about spiritual gifts, he says in verse 2, you know that when you were pagans, in other words, not Christians, you were heathens, you were being led astray to the mute idols, however you were led.

So there are many different ways in which a person who is an unbeliever may come to worship something that is not God. When a person is not a Christian, they put something else in the place of God, and that becomes the object of their worship.

A person doesn't have to be a polytheist or has an idol in their home in order to be qualified as a pagan or in order to be an idolater. For Paul says in Colossians chapter 3 that covetousness is idolatry, desiring that which you don't have, that doesn't belong to you, not being satisfied with what you've been given, but thinking that you need this in order to be fulfilled or to be happy.

That's covetousness, and that's equated with idolatry in the New Testament. So a person who doesn't have an idol and maybe they don't even believe in gods at all, perhaps they are a true atheist, yet they're still an idolater because they desire to have something.

There is something that becomes the object of their worship, and I cannot be happy or satisfied or fulfilled until I have this thing. It could even be an idea. It could be something philosophical. It doesn't necessarily have to be something material, but you think that that will be the thing that unlocks the secrets of the universe for me, and so that becomes God to that person.

So an idolater is anybody who is not worshiping Jesus Christ, who does not know the true and living God, the creator of all things. And there's all manner of things in this world that may lead us astray into idolatry, which is why Paul says, however you were led.

When you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. It could have been false teaching. Somebody had convinced them this is the truth, and so they worshiped false gods, believing those false gods were real.

It could have been the passions of their own flesh, a person who has a longing, urging desire for something in their flesh, and there's a God for that. So they go after that God to satisfy this desire in their flesh.

Could have been money, right? Could have been the desire for fame and fortune. It could have been sex, because that was a big thing in Corinth. You had the temple to Aphrodite there at the top of the Acrocorinth, where priestess prostitutes were employed.

And so to go sacrifice to that goddess in that temple was to have sex with a prostitute on a pagan altar. Very, very sexually promiscuous city, fallen into all kinds of sexual depravity. And so that's one of the things that could have led a person astray into idolatry.

Their passions of their own flesh could have been false teaching, could have been passions of the flesh, could have been a person was just self-deluded. There are any number of things that may take us away into idolatry, but it's always going to be a rebellion against God.

A person doesn't want God, and so they go after, because they're not thankful for the things that God has given to them. They go after the stuff of this world. Paul laid that out in Romans chapter one, even because they did not see fit to acknowledge God or give thanks to them.

Their foolish hearts were darkened, and so God gave them over to the lusts and the passions of their own flesh. Their rebellion is against God, so they go after false gods. When you were pagans, you were being led astray to the mute idols, however you were led.

Now, earlier in our study of 1 Corinthians, I went back to Isaiah, where there's that condemnation of the idolater who goes and cuts down a tree and fashions it into an idol and then falls down and worships it.

He made the thing, but he worships this thing that he has created as if the thing that he has made can give something to him. I'm not going to go back and read that again, since it was only a few weeks ago that we did that, but that's the ignorance that Paul is wanting to work out of the Corinthians here, right?

I don't want you to be ignorant. I want you to be informed. When you were following after those mute idols, that was when you did not have knowledge. That was when you didn't have wisdom. Sin makes us do all kinds of stupid things.

Sin is stupid. Put that on a bumper sticker, stick it on your car, right? Makes us do all kinds of manner of ignorance in rebellion against God, but Paul wanting them to be knowledgeable of God and the ways of God.

Here in chapter 12, even the ways of the spirit. So that way they're not led astray, but that they continue to walk in truth. When you were pagans, you were being led astray to the mute idols, however you were led.

Jesus Is Accursed, Jesus Is Lord, and the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit

Therefore, I make known to you. I don't want you to be ignorant. I'm making known to you. That no one speaking by the spirit of God says Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

Now on the surface, it's a very easy verse to understand. I said that this verse is complicated and it is, and again, I needed some help, but it seems pretty straightforward. Right from the get go, a person cannot say Jesus is accursed if they have the Holy Spirit.

Of God.

Why would anybody ever say such a thing? I know that Jesus is the son of God, that he is God incarnate who has come in the flesh. As it said in first John and second John, if anybody denies that Jesus is God who has come in the flesh, he is an antichrist and the truth is not in him.

So a person who truly knows that Jesus Christ is God, God incarnate who has come in the flesh, and as we are remembering this week at Christmas time, right? We celebrate the incarnation. If a person knows that, then they're never going to say anything like Jesus is accursed.

And that's what the Pharisees were doing when Jesus would work miracles and they would say, well, he's of Beelzebul, he's got a demon in him, and so he by the power of Satan is casting out demons. And that's when Jesus says, how can Satan do that, right?

If a house is divided against itself, how can it stand? Why would Satan be casting out Satan? And then goes on to say that the Pharisees were dangerously close to committing, if not committing, the unforgivable sin.

This is in Matthew chapter 12. I could have just been reading it to you. I'm going to start reading in verse 22, then a demon oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him and Jesus healed him so that the man spoke and saw and all the people were amazed and said, can this be the son of David?

But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, it is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons. Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and no city or house divided against itself will stand.

And if Satan casts out Satan, he's divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.

But if it is by the spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man, then indeed he may plunder his house.

Whoever is not with me is against me and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven.

And whoever speaks a word against the son of man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come. So there you have what we call the unforgivable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

And I'm asked fairly often, how do I know if I've committed the blasphemy of the Holy.

Spirit?

Well, if you're still feeling convicted over sin and if you're asking that question, then chances are you've not committed the unforgivable sin. Repent of your sin, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and so live.

But if you go through your life saying things like Jesus is accursed, well then you are committing blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and your heart will never be granted repentance. You'll just continue to say evil things about the son of God until your death.

Now, Jesus said there that even if a person blasphemes the son of God, that he will be forgiven that sin. Thank God for his mercy in that because I know I've blasphemed the son of God. But in this particular case, you're talking about having been shown by the Holy Spirit the truth, and yet you continue to rebel against it and would do so until your dying day.

And if that's the case, then it's evident that you had blasphemed the Spirit of God and would never receive forgiveness for that. You would come into judgment deservedly so because you continued to reject the truth that had been revealed by the Spirit of God.

Now, I don't think it's necessarily for us on this side of heaven to examine a person and know whether or not they've committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. This is a warning of a person that you may examine yourself and be sure that you're not walking in lies or saying something against the Spirit in such a way that would lead to such condemnation that God would even turn you over to your own depraved mind that you would never see the truth and come ultimately into judgment.

As long as there is breath in your lungs, I believe that you have this opportunity right now to be convicted in your heart and to turn from your sin and repent, ask God for forgiveness, and by the grace of God, he will show it to you.

But there are those, and God knows the condition of their heart because he's the one that has hardened their hearts against him. There are those who have committed this blasphemy to this degree that no matter what happens for the rest of their life, they are never going to repent.

And that is for God to know because he is the one who examines minds and hearts and knows the thoughts of every single person. We may not be able to determine whether or not a person has committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, but God knows for sure.

The point Paul is making here, back to 1 Corinthians 12, 3, is that if a person truly has the Spirit of God, then they're not going to say anything blasphemous about Jesus Christ in such a way as though to say Jesus is accursed, that he is not really the blessed holy one of God, that he is not really the one who is seated at the Father's right hand to whom the Father has given all things.

Because they would say Jesus is accursed, that he is like any man in the flesh and there is nothing great about this man at all, or that Jesus even came as a false teacher and that it's not Jesus that we should follow.

You know, Muhammad being one of those persons, Muhammad, the founder of Islam, had declared that Jesus was not the son of God. And that man being one who until his death had never repented of the heresies that he proclaimed and was guilty of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Every person that comes into judgment really is guilty of this blasphemy, that they never heeded the Spirit of God convicting their hearts of their sin and so turned to the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.

There are some people who for a period of time in their life may look like Christians, sound like Christians, say all the right Christian things, but then eventually they fall away from the faith and they reveal that they never were in the faith to begin with.

They never truly had the Spirit of God. It was just a passing opinion. In their flesh for that time, it seemed good to them to act like a Christian. But when things got difficult or when the world came down on them or their own flesh was going after their own desires, well, then Christianity was of no use to them.

See, this goes back to the statement that Paul said back in verse 2, when you were pagans you were being led astray to the mute idols, however you were led. There are people that are led out of Christianity or led away from what they once proclaimed to be true for all different manner of reasons, because they couldn't deal with the persecution.

They couldn't deal with being ridiculed by other people. They couldn't deal with or couldn't handle passions in their own flesh. They were too enticed by the things of this world. Satan had a strong delusion for them.

You know, whatever reason it was that they turn away from the faith to worldly things, there's all different kinds of things that lead people astray. But anyway, let's back on verse 3 here. So nobody who has the Spirit of God can say Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

So what of those people who do say that Jesus is Lord, but then after a time, it turns out that they never really believed that particular statement? Well, they would not abandon that truth if they truly had the Spirit of God.

If a person leaves the faith, then they're actually by their actions, by their thoughts, declaring that Jesus is accursed. He can't really be the Son of God who can save me. If a person thinks that they can abandon faith in Christ and go about some other way to attain righteousness or goodness or everlasting life.

That person comes into believing that Jesus is accursed. So this statement here in verse 3 is not saying that if a person declares Jesus is Lord, therefore we have to be certain that they have the Holy Spirit of God.

That's not really what's being said here. But nobody can say it and mean it. Nobody can say it in a manner that is truly worshipful of God unless they have the Spirit.

Of God.

No one knows that Jesus is Lord unless the Spirit of God has revealed it to them. And if they know that Jesus is God, they will always know that Jesus is God from the moment of their conversion on. They will never abandon that thought for to abandon the knowledge and the understanding of that Jesus is God is to immediately condemn oneself.

And why would a person willingly make that decision? Unless they never really were truly convinced in the first place that Jesus is judge of all. Right now, as I said, looking at this particular verse, I needed a little help.

So I went to the MacArthur study Bible to see what it was. The note that he put on this in first Corinthians 12, 3. And here is what he wrote. This is the most severe kind of condemnation, making this statement that Jesus is accursed most severe kind of condemnation.

Some of the Corinthians were fleshly and given over to ecstasies that were controlled by.

Demons.

In that condition, they actually claim to be prophesying or teaching in the spirit while demonically blaspheming the name of the Lord whom they were supposed to be worshiping. They had been judging the use of the gifts on the basis of experience and not content.

Satan always assaults the person of Christ. It is possible that the cursor of Christ was a Gentile claiming to be a Christian, but holding to a philosophy that all matter was evil, including the human Jesus.

This is pre Gnosticism. They might have said that the Christ spirit left the human Jesus before his death. And therefore, Jesus died a cursed death as a mere man. Now, then about this statement, Jesus is Lord.

The validity of any speaking exercise is determined by the truthfulness of it. If the speaker affirms the Lordship of Jesus, it is the truth from the Holy Spirit. What a person believes and says about Jesus Christ is the test of whether he speaks from the Holy Spirit.

He always leads people to Christ's Lordship. All right. So there we have that understanding of a person is going to say that Jesus is accursed. They cannot really have the spirit of God. And if a person is going to say Jesus is Lord, then it is going to be an expression that truly comes from the heart.

I've known people who weren't Christians who have said Jesus is Lord, and they did not really mean Jesus is Lord in the biblical sense. So it's a statement that sometimes has to be tested. But if a person truly knows that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he is the creator of all things, that he is our Savior, and all who put faith in him and him alone will be forgiven their sins and have everlasting life, then they will always believe so.

And they will want to lead others to that truth as well, because it is only by this truth that we are saved. A person who truly believes it from the heart will declare it from the mouth. For as it says in Romans 10, 8, and 9, the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith that we proclaim.

Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So notice here in Romans 10, 9, it's not just that you say it from your mouth, but you also believe it from the heart.

And a person who truly knows and says and believes truly has the Spirit of God. We'll talk more about spiritual gifts next week. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit. And I pray that you forgive us our sins and that we desire to live according to the Spirit.

That we want to produce fruit of the Spirit, as talked about in Galatians chapter 5. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

So lead us in these things today and guide us in your truth as we continue to learn more about having spiritual gifts and serving in these gifts for the benefit of the church to the praise of your glory and grace.

It is in the name of Jesus that we pray, Amen.

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