The Church's Life in the Spirit

Holiness and unity are the primary qualities of Christ's Church, and they are two sides of the same coin, reflecting the truth that Christians are members of one another because they are members of Christ by His indwelling and transforming Spirit. The Spirit is the crucial focal point in any consideration of Christ's Church and its life and function in the world. And the Spirit's "gifts" - His sovereign, wise, and manifold distribution of spiritual endowments - stand at the center of His relationship with the Church and His work within its members. This message examines the matter of spiritual gifts, not in abstraction or as a distinct doctrinal topic, but as the way in which the Spirit accomplishes His work of creational renewal. That renewal presently involves human conformity to the New Adam, but with a view toward the Spirit's ultimate accomplishment of summing up everything in the created order in Jesus the Messiah.