One of the ways in which the ‘parakletos’ can speak today is through inspired words of prophecy, and this is the subject of our next verse. In his first letter to Corinth, Paul gives directions to the church on its use of spiritual gifts, ‘charismata’. In 14. 23-5, he contrasts the gift of tongues with the gift of prophecy: if an unbeliever or an enquirer comes into the church meeting and every one is speaking in tongues, “will they not say that you are mad ?”, he asks, rhetorically, and reasonably enough. “But”, he continues, “if every one is prophesying, the enquirer or unbeliever is ‘convicted’ ('elencho') by every one and judged by every one; the secrets of the heart are revealed, and he will fall on his face and worship God, crying, ‘Truly God is among you’”. Once again, we see that it is the work of the Spirit to search deep into the hearts of men (“the world”), and shed his holy light onto our darkest secrets. He may do this through an inspired word of prophecy or through a carefully prepared - and equally inspired -sermon, but in either case it is the word of God directed by the Spirit of God which has this armour-piercing power; as the writer to the Hebrews says, “the word of God is alive and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, --- able to judge the thoughts and intentions of our hearts” (Heb 4.12). It is, of course, the loving purpose of God that the Spirit’s ministry of conviction should lead to repentance and conversion, if not always as dramatically as in the scenario which Paul envisages in these verses. But we have also seen that, all too often, “men love darkness rather than light”, so that conviction leads to condemnation; there is little evidence that the priests and Pharisees were led to repentance by their guilty consciences in the previous passage. It has been suggested that the word that Paul uses in verse 24, translated ‘judged’ (‘anakrino’, a compound of the basic verb ‘krino’), refers to a preliminary hearing, or a ‘pre-trial hearing’. The noun derived from it, ‘anakrisis’, seems to be used in this sense in Acts 25. 26, where the Roman governor Festus tells King Agrippa that he is holding this ‘hearing’ so that he may have some hard information (literally, ‘something safe’) to write to ‘the Lord’, Caesar, to whom Paul has appealed, and who will therefore make the final judgement. This is a helpful analogy. All mankind will one day face the final judgement before the throne of ‘the Lord’, Jesus Christ himself, when the books will be opened (Rev 20 12) and every secret revealed. But before that awesome day (‘dies irae, dies illa’), God graciously empowers his Holy Spirit to hold a ‘preliminary hearing’ in a lower court, the court of our own hearts, not to condemn us, but to show us our desperate need of mercy, and so to lead us to “repentance and forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24.47).
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
[Parakletos] 'elencho' f: Corinth
One of the ways in which the ‘parakletos’ can speak today is through inspired words of prophecy, and this is the subject of our next verse. In his first letter to Corinth, Paul gives directions to the church on its use of spiritual gifts, ‘charismata’. In 14. 23-5, he contrasts the gift of tongues with the gift of prophecy: if an unbeliever or an enquirer comes into the church meeting and every one is speaking in tongues, “will they not say that you are mad ?”, he asks, rhetorically, and reasonably enough. “But”, he continues, “if every one is prophesying, the enquirer or unbeliever is ‘convicted’ ('elencho') by every one and judged by every one; the secrets of the heart are revealed, and he will fall on his face and worship God, crying, ‘Truly God is among you’”. Once again, we see that it is the work of the Spirit to search deep into the hearts of men (“the world”), and shed his holy light onto our darkest secrets. He may do this through an inspired word of prophecy or through a carefully prepared - and equally inspired -sermon, but in either case it is the word of God directed by the Spirit of God which has this armour-piercing power; as the writer to the Hebrews says, “the word of God is alive and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, --- able to judge the thoughts and intentions of our hearts” (Heb 4.12). It is, of course, the loving purpose of God that the Spirit’s ministry of conviction should lead to repentance and conversion, if not always as dramatically as in the scenario which Paul envisages in these verses. But we have also seen that, all too often, “men love darkness rather than light”, so that conviction leads to condemnation; there is little evidence that the priests and Pharisees were led to repentance by their guilty consciences in the previous passage. It has been suggested that the word that Paul uses in verse 24, translated ‘judged’ (‘anakrino’, a compound of the basic verb ‘krino’), refers to a preliminary hearing, or a ‘pre-trial hearing’. The noun derived from it, ‘anakrisis’, seems to be used in this sense in Acts 25. 26, where the Roman governor Festus tells King Agrippa that he is holding this ‘hearing’ so that he may have some hard information (literally, ‘something safe’) to write to ‘the Lord’, Caesar, to whom Paul has appealed, and who will therefore make the final judgement. This is a helpful analogy. All mankind will one day face the final judgement before the throne of ‘the Lord’, Jesus Christ himself, when the books will be opened (Rev 20 12) and every secret revealed. But before that awesome day (‘dies irae, dies illa’), God graciously empowers his Holy Spirit to hold a ‘preliminary hearing’ in a lower court, the court of our own hearts, not to condemn us, but to show us our desperate need of mercy, and so to lead us to “repentance and forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24.47).
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