THE GIFT OF THE WORD OF WISDOM
(1 Corinthians 12:8a).
This gift is a supernatural revelation from God given to the recipient He chooses to give it to. The revelation points toward the future, and although confused with the gift of the word of knowledge, is completely different.
The Greek word for wisdom is Sophia, and is used in many different ways in the New Testament. Sometimes it refers to revelation, and many other times it is not. In the early church, the gift was used more in a revelatory sense than it is presently used in our day. Today, it is usually used as a supernatural skill given by God to apply facts which have been discovered by someone with the gift of knowledge and use it for the edification of the church. In many cases, the same person has both of the gifts, but in many other instances, has only one or the other of the gifts.
The gift of the word of wisdom differs from knowledge in the sense that wisdom emphasizes the skill of application rather than the knowledge of facts. Wisdom is the ability to take the facts that the gift of knowledge has brought out and make a skillful application of it. A Christian counselor might be given this gift to identify a problem, and with his knowledge of the word of God, draw out the principles that could be applied to solve the problem. An expositor might use this gift in taking the word of God, studying commentaries, by reading the work of those who have the gift of knowledge, and draw out of that work specific principles to edify the church. However, of the many ways the word wisdom is used in the New Testament the primary use of the gift is the ability to understand God's will and make an application to obedience. So, a good definition of the gift might be: "The Spirit given ability to show us the principles that we need to know and obey to fulfill God's will." So knowledge is collecting the facts, and wisdom is the application of those facts.
Therefore, it is obvious that the gifts of prophecy, word of knowledge and wisdom still exist in the today. If prophecy was eliminated, what are people doing who proclaim the word of God? If knowledge has has already been done away with, what are the theologians who dig out the deep truths of the word of God doing? If wisdom has been already done away with, what can we
call the gift people are using who take the truth and apply it to life? The measuring rod to keep all three of these gifts in a Christian prospective is they must line up with the already written inspired word of God, the Bible. The Canon is closed! There are no more new revelations.
ARE THERE ANY NEW REVELATIONS?
What does "the inspiration of the Holy Spirit" really mean? Is the Lord still giving new Divine revelation today, as many claim? Charismatics claim the 29th chapter of Acts is still being written! Roman Catholics are accepting any new revelation the Popes have given through the centuries, as being the absolute "infallible word of God". Does the Holy Spirit still inspire Christians by direct revelation to write, preach, church sin, teach, or make special decisions? Are Christians "naturally" led by the indwelling Holy Spirit, or do they receive personal, divine revelations? Charismatics, and Pentecostals as a whole, believe in direct revelation from God, and most avid Charismatics could even be referred to as "mystics".
Mystics are people who claim to have the ability to enter into direct communication with God in a ONE on one conversation. Naturally, new revelations usually are the result of the communications most of the cults have been started by individuals who have heard "extra Biblical" revelations, supposedly of God or one of His messengers, and have made a doctrine out of it.
An ex-dean of Melodyland School of Theology, a charismatic college wrote: "The Bible truly has become a fellow witness to God's present activity... If someone today perhaps has a vision of God, of Christ, it is good to know that it has happened before; if one has a revelation from God, to know that for the early Christians revelation also occurred in the community; if one speaks a "Thus says the Lord" and dares to address the fellowship in the first person - even going beyond the words of Scripture that this was happening long ago. How strange and remarkable it is! If one speaks in the fellowship of the Spirit the word of truth, it is neither his own thoughts and reflections (e.g. , on some topic of the day) nor simply some exposition of Scripture, for the Spirit, transcends personal observation, however interesting or profound they may be. The Spirit as the living God moves through and beyond the records of past witness, however valuable such records are as a model for what happens today. The Bible is not our final source of God's revelation to us! it is only a witness to additional revelation He is giving us today! He is saying we can add to the Bible, because it is only a model for the actions of the Holy Spirit today in His inspiration of believers."
The Greek word for "inspiration" is theopneutos, and means "God breathed". In 2 Timothy 3:16, we are told "all scripture is given by inspiration of God... So scripture is not men's works of which God gave divine life, but Scripture is the actual breath of God! Scripture is God speaking! We are told in 2 Peter 1:21, "For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men
we are told: "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." So this verse looks forward to the complete canon of the scripture, the one and only faith! There is no other. Paul stated in 1 Timothy 4:1, "In later times some will fall away from the faith." The So, in actuality, what this man is indicating is that moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God."
Also, in Jude 3, in the Greek, is an aorist passive participle, and indicates an act completed in the past with no continuing element. In this instance the passive voice means the faith was not discovered by men but was given to men by God!
So the Scriptures are the all sufficient teaching on salvation by grace through faith in Christ, that is final and complete. Our faith must rest on historical revelation, therefore rules out all new revelation, prophecies, seers, mystics, etc, until God speaks again at His return to earth in the second coming. Therefore, since God's word never changes, any new revelation or doctrine is both false and "extra unneeded baggage".
In arguing for progressive or continuing revelation, the same charismatic writer, J. Rodman Williams, whom I previously quoted (ex-dean of Melodyland School of Theology) stated: "For in the Spirit the present fellowship is as much the arena of "God's vital presence as anything in the biblical account. Indeed, in light of what we may learn from their past witness, and take to heart, we may expect new things to occur in our day and days to come. In prophecy God speaks. It is as simple, and profound, and startling as that! What happens in the fellowship is that the word may suddenly be spoken by anyone present, and so, variously, a "Thus says the Lord" breaks forth in the fellowship. It is usually in the first person (though not always), such as I am with you to bless you. ." and has the directness of an "I-thou" encounter. It comes not in a "heavenly language", but in the native tongue of the person speaking and with his accustomed infections, cadences and manners. Indeed, the speech may even be coarse and ungrammatical; it may be a mixture of "King James" and modern; it may falter as well as flow - such really does not manner. For in prophecy God uses what he finds, and through frail human instruments the Spirit speaks the word of the Lord.
All of this, to repeat, is quite surprising and startling. Most of us, of course, were familiar with prophetic utterances as recorded in the bible, and willing to accept it as the word of God. Isaiahs or Jeremiah's "Thus says the Lord...". We were accustomed to, but to hear a Tom or a Mary today, in the twentieth century, speak the same way...! Many of us also had convinced ourselves that prophecy ended with the New Testament (despite all the New Testament evidence to the contrary), until suddenly through the dynamic thrust of the Holy Spirit prophecy comes alive again. Now we wonder how we could have misread the New Testament for so long!"
If these claims could possibly be true, I cannot imagine how the prophetic messages could be checked out as "inspired", or "God-Breathed", without the already revealed Bible. Who would be the prophets we could believe?
How could we distinguish between error and fraud? How could we tell if the messages came from false prophets, without any authority from God to give the message? I also, only being human would like to believe in the authenticity of fresh new messages, but I choose "safe" ground of which to stand on! That ground is the uniqueness of the already cannonized scripture. I cannot allow my emotions to judge the Bible, but I must demand that I judge my emotions or experiences in light of what the Bible says!
Therefore, there can be no question between the distinction of Biblical authority and additional revelation. If I cannot back up any prophetic message by already any revealed Biblical scriptures, then I must make the choice to reject it as not being a direct message from God! I cannot afford to chance the fact, that the message could be from either the person's human spirit, or even that it could be from a false prophet controlled by a spirit of darkness!?
Christians must test the Spirits, to see if they are from God! John said, "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." (1 John 4:2) Whenever someone in the congregation stands up and gives "a message", and it seems to be a new revelation which has not been mentioned in Scripture before, we must remember what the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 11:13,14,15.
He said, "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. An no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works." So, in light of that warning, as Christians, we must always realize the other possible sources of "new revelations" whenever they cannot be backed up by the Bible! I must make that personal decision to believe that the Bible is Cad's only basis of authority!
Naturally, there are now, as there always has been, those who say that since men are the ones who decided which Scripture, or Holy writings were inspired by God, and they did not even decide upon which books were inspired until the 4th century, then there was much of the word of God left out of the canonized books of the Bible! Therefore, these new revelations may be some of the word of God which was not canonized. The Roman Catholic church accepts the apocrypha books as scripture, but these books cannot be God inspired because of their errors
in geography, theology, and history! Many of the early church fathers accepted them as Scripture, such as Augustine, Polycarp, Origen, Cyprian and Clement. erome (345-419) did not accept the Apocrypha. The reformers of the sixteenth century declared the Bible as supreme and only authority. They did not accept the Aproypha as being God inspired. Catholics and Protestants have been arguing about it ever since!
The Old Testament was completed about 400 B.C., and the criteria used by the Jews to know which books were inspired, was to choose the books written by people who claimed to be inspired by God and claimed to be His spokesmen. They examined those books closely and found them to be free of errors, which were genuine in theology, geography and history.
The church did similar tests to prove which books were God inspired for the New Testament.
Apostolic authorship was the key. In order to be genuine, each book of the New Testament had to be written by an apostle or a close associate of the apostles. For example, Luke was not an apostle, but obtained his information from the Apostle Paul. Mark was not an apostle, but received his information from Peter. The other thing they did when they got together was to measure up all prophetic utterances or teachings or writings to see if it agreed "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." By doing this, books with doctrinal errors never were accepted by the church, even if they had been brought in by false prophets. with apostolic doctrine.
The Old Testament was completed about 400 B.C., and the criteria used by the Jews to know which books were inspired, was to choose the books written by people who claimed to be inspired by God and claimed to be His spokesmen. They examined those books closely and found them to be free of errors, which were genuine in theology, geography and history.
The church did similar tests to prove which books were God inspired for the New Testament. Apostolic authorship was the key. In order to be genuine, each book of the New Testament had to be written by an apostle or a close associate of the apostles. For example, Luke was not an apostle, but obtained his information from the apostle Paul. Mark was not an apostle, but received his information from Peter. The other thing they did utterances or teachings or writings to see if it agreed with apostolic doctrine. Luke recorded in Acts 2:42, "and they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." By doing this, books with doctrinal errors never were accepted by the church, even if they had been brought in by false prophets.
The genuine books were read in the churches, and used for public worship, and lives were being changed as a result. When the books were translated into the when they got together was to measure up all prophetic languages of the people, only the right books got in there.
Since the apostles time, the real church always believed the Bible to be the total completed, word of God. It is infallible, authoritative, inerrant, efficient, sufficient, and complete! Whenever anyone tries to add "new revelation" to the Bible, the body of Christ is weakened, and heresy results, and cults are formed!
Charismatics and Pentecostals do not claim to add to scripture, but their views on gifts of prophecy and new revelation prove otherwise. In order to understand scripture, one must diligently study it, not listen and accept something from someone who thinks he has the gift of prophecy!
THE RESULTS OF NEOORTHODOX VIEWS -
Tthe neoorthodox believer says that God is still giving new revelations and inspiring people the same as when He inspired them to write the Bible. The neoorthodox view is that the Bible is not all there is, and that the Bible is not inspired until it creates an experience for you. According to this view, it creates an experience for you. According to this view, God speaks personally in private revelation when we encounter Him, instead of speaking propositionally in the word.
The results of the neoorthodox view is the formation of cults by their extrabiblical revelations.
Most of the founders of the cults have either claimed a personal extra Biblical revelation or accepted a revelation directed toward them by a close associate. L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology claimed he received his revelation from God. Edgar Cayce, the physic spiritualist claimed to have gotten his revelations from God. Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, got his revelations from the angel "Moroni". He wrote these revelations in the book of Mormon. Mormons put this book of new revelations on the same level of authority as the Bible. Further new revelations resulted with their writing the books "Doctrine and Covenants" and "Pearl of Great Price".
Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of "Christian Science", claims to have new revelations. Her paper, which still continues to be published, claims to be extrabiblical revelation. The "Christian Science Journal", July 1975 issue states: "Because it is not human philosophy, but a divine revelation, the divinity-based reason and logic of Christian Science necessarily separates it from all other systems. Mrs. Eddy was certain she was used by god to reveal his truth for today.
The Jehovah's Witness cult claim to have the only true revelation from "Jehovah God".
There are others too numerous to document in the context of this thesis, however, if we are to accept extra-Biblical revelation as being authoritive, in addition to the Bible, where do we draw the line? There are present charismatic, widely accepted ministries which have been founded by men who have reported to have had direct encounters with God!
Morris Cerullo, a Pentecostal Evangelist, who is had a direct audience with Christ when he was divinely transported into the heavenlies by Christ and given instruction when he was 13 years of age, and in a Jewish orphanage! He claims to have a direct contact with God and claims that "God speaks" to him often giving him instructions and messages to share with his people. Cerullo claims to be a modern day prophet, well known among the Charismatic circles.
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