The greatest gift that God ever gave to the world was His Son, Jesus Christ. The second greatest gift is truth—His divine truth. The truth about Himself, about us, about life and death, about judgment and salvation, about heaven, and about hell. We live in a world where deception abounds because the entire human race is held captive in the lap of the great deceiver. Amid all the deception of Satan, his demons, and deceived humanity; amid all the darkness and depravity of the heart of the unbeliever (the unregenerate, the blasphemer, the crucifier), God deposits truth—His truth. To receive the greatest gift of salvation through Christ, the second greatest gift must be in place because in order to believe in Christ and what God offers through Him one must first believe that everything Scripture teaches about Christ is true. Christ Himself, while in the flesh, had been the source of truth. Everything He spoke was divine truth. When Christ returned to the Father, he promised that the apostles and all subsequent believers would not be without an agent of truth—that agent is the Holy Spirit (John 15:26). God is the truth. Christ is the truth. The Spirit is the truth. What a marvelous gift! Without having the gift of truth, we would be trapped in Satan’s kingdom of deception in which the only escape is to know the truth (John 8:32).
It is through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the apostles were enabled to write what we now have as God’s completed revelation—the Bible. It is through the illumination of the Holy Spirit that the Word of God is made alive and applicable in the life of the believer today. As we continue to study the truth of God’s Word regarding the spiritual gifts found in Pau’s letter to the church at Corinth, may the Holy Spirit open our eyes so that we may behold the beautiful truth before us (Ps 119:18).
Brent Thompson
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