Creation and New Creation: And How They Relate to Spiritual Gifts

A third way to understand Spiritual Gifts

The issue of Spiritual Gifts is one that can easily divide a church, and therefore it must be handled very carefully.

On one side (particularly those in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements), we have churches that see certain charismata (free gifts) as supernatural gifts that demonstrate God’s extra level of grace to the recipient. For Pentecostals especially, the gift of tongues is seen as a “second blessing” and evidence of the “second baptism” of the Holy Spirit.

On the other side, we have those who insist that these more “miraculous” gifts (tongues, healings, prophecy) were “Signs of the Apostles.” God gave the Apostles special gifts so that people could recognize them as the authoritative Apostles of Jesus Christ. The vindication of their authority laid the foundation for the church through their inspired writings. After the Apostles died and their writings were gathered as the New Testament, the place of signs and wonders had past. Therefore, we should not seek them today.

I think there is a third way to understand this. It has to do with Creation and New Creation.

In the beginning, God made humans in His image. Throughout history, we see humans gifted to do wonderful things that imaged God’s creativity, love, and dominion over the creation. For instance, Bezalel, Oholiab, and other men were “filled with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts” (Exodus 31:1-11). God’s gifts of poetry and song were given to various people, as well as the gifts to interpret dreams and to prophesy. So, God’s gifts to humans (so that they can do the work of being “Eikons”) are freely given to his people at various times and in varying degrees. This is the normal state of affairs in God’s good creation. We've grown accustomed to calling human "skills, abilities, and knowledge" (like crafts, poetry, medicine, etc.) as "natural," while we call certain more flashy gifts as "supernatural." No dichotomy like this is found in the Bible, not in the original Created Order, nor in the New Creation in Christ.

One of the great prophesies concerning the New Creation was given by Joel:

And it shall come to pass afterward,
____that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
____your old men shall dream dreams,
____and your young men shall see visions.
Even upon the menservants and maidservants
____in those days, I will pour out my spirit. (Joel 2:28-29)

Joel says that when the New Creation begins, God’s spirit will be poured out like never before. When Jesus began his ministry, we read that “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Luke 4:14). This power heals and casts out demons (Luke 4:31-41). Jesus proclaims that “if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt. 12:28). A new day had begun to dawn in the person and work of Jesus Christ. But this power not only does these amazing feats, but it also does what we would not normally call "supernatural." This power anointed Jesus to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor (Luke 4:15-22). Overcoming injustice is not normally seen as "supernatural," but it is just as much a part of the New Creation as casting out demons.

Jesus then sent his disciples out, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” and told them, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Matt. 10:7-8). And the power of the Holy Spirit did not end with the Apostles, for when the Spirit was poured out on the church at Pentecost, Peter saw that it was Joel’s prophecy being fulfilled (Acts 2:16-21).

In the original Creation, God empowered humans to do that which should come “natural” to them. God gives "free gifts" to his people so that they can fulfill their call and purpose - to be Image-Bearers. These gifts do not transcend our natural existence, so to call these gifts "supernatural" is a misnomer. Certainly they come from the Supernatural One, but they are natural to being human.

In other words, Spiritual Gifts should be seen as belonging to the natural order of God’s good creation. In the words of Albert Wolters (Creation Regained: Biblical Basics of a Reformational Worldview), the more ‘miraculous’ gifts…

“are gifts of the Spirit as genuinely as love, joy, and peace are, but they do not add anything to what God had intended for his earthly creation from the beginning. They are therefore ‘natural.’ They are like faith, only someone regenerated by the Spirit can have faith (true faith, that is, faith in Jesus Christ) but this regeneration does not make faith foreign to the Creator’s original purpose. And just as faith as a general human function is not unknown outside the body of Christ (though it is always misdirected there), so the charismatic gifts are not unknown outside the body of Christ (though they are misguided and abused there).”

So, in the New Creation, we find that all the "free gifts" from God are meant to edify the church and to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God. So, the gift of tongues, if used in accordance to how the Bible says they must be used, will do this. And the gift of administration (to pick one of the less flashy gifts) can also do this. Wolters writes,

“All human talents and abilities can flourish and blossom under the regenerating and sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit to the glory and service of God. When opened up by the Spirit they are all charismatic gifts. This applies to social tact, to a way with children, to a knack for communicating, to mechanical skill, or whatever. There may be degrees of importance or splendor in the gifts, but all alike qualify as ‘charismatic’ and ‘spiritual’ if they are directed to Christ’s redemption, sanctification, and reconciliation.”

Not everyone has been given all of the Holy Spirit's gifts. Not everybody has the ability to be a math whiz (I jokingly tell people, "I went into ministry because I understood there would be no math"); not everybody is a poet; not everybody is mechanical. Neither is everybody given the gift of tongues or healings or prophesy.

The point is this: All of these gifts need to be seen as a part of God’s intention for the Original Creation, and all the more in the New Creation that came in Jesus Christ.
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