The True Church
Lesson # 6
The Gifts of the Spirit for the Body

The Spiritual Reality of the Body of Christ:
- Jesus said: “At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” John 14:20 NKJV
- “I in you” With this statement, Jesus was revealing to His disciples what will happen when a person is born again—His Spirit would come into that person and change their spiritual condition from death to life—this is a spiritual reality that cannot be explained and it can only be accepted by faith.
- “You in Me” This is another spiritual reality that cannot be explained, but accepted by faith. At the moment a person is born again, the Spirit baptizes the believer into the Body of Christ, the church.
- Paul explained this way: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 1 Cor. 12:13 NKJV
The Gifts and the Body of Christ:

Paul explains the working of the Body: “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.”

The Spirit gives gifts to the Body of believers and we, as members in the Body, need to use our spiritual gifts for the edifying of the Body in love.
The gifts of the Spirit are an essential part of the Body of Christ, the church.
The power of the Spirit is demonstrated through the gifts.
The gifts were part of the Body of Christ, the New Testament Church. The gifts are part of the church today because it is God’s order and pattern for the church, the Body of Christ. The gifts will be part of the church all the way to the end of the ages because the mighty God has willed it to happen that way.
In the gathering of believers as a church, the Spirit moved activating the gifts in each member.
The gifts of the Spirit were for the internal working of the gathering of believers as they ministered to each other with the gifts.

Most of these gifts are the supernatural gifts that many churches don’t accept claiming that they were only for the New Testament Church.

Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them:
if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith
ministry, let us use it in our ministering;
he who teaches, in teaching;
he who exhorts, in exhortation;
he who gives, with liberality;
he who leads, with diligence;
he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness Romans 12:6-8 NKJV

These are the more acceptable gifts in most churches because they are not the supernatural kind.

“But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.” 1 Corinthians 12:11 NKJV
The Almighty God gave the church His Spirit and the Spirit give gifts to the individual members of the Body as He wills for the edification of the Body. This was God’s order and pattern for the church.
IMPORTANT: Nowhere in the Scriptures does it say that the gifts of the Spirit were only for the New Testament Church. Nowhere in the Scriptures does it say that the gifts were to end at the end of the apostle age. There is a warning in the Scriptures that we should not add or delete anything in the Word of God. The teaching of the gifts is part of the Scriptures and to say that we should not accept them now because we THINK they were only for the New Testament Church is really deleting part of the Word of God and calling it OBSOLETE. This is very dangerous!