by Timothy W. Burnett
Any time peope speak by the spirit of God, they will never curse the Lord Jesus Christ. God wants us to understnad this very clearly. It is impossible to curse Jesus Christ by the spirit of God. Verses 7-9 cover nine different ways to profit from the manifestation of holy spirit. Three involve speaking by the spirit of God. They are prophecy, speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues.
There was a time when I thought that speaking in tongues could be influenced by satan. I thought differently after a believer showed me verse 3. Any time a Christian starts speaking in tongues, God guarantees that the spoken words will not call Jesus Christ accursed. The words will not be understood by the one speaking, but God guarantees they will be truth.
In the second part of verse 3 God covers an example of speaking by His spirit. The verse does not clearly explain what it refers to. But if we allow God's word to interpret itself in the context of other verses, it begins to open up more perfectly. ICorinthians 14:15 uses the phrase "pray with the spirit of God' in the context of speaking in tongues. This helps immensely toward understanding verse three of chapter twelve.
To truly say that Jesus is the Lord can only be done by the Holy Ghost. This statement is very similar to the words in Romans 10:9-10 where it refers to confessing with the mouth the Lord Jesus. They are so similar that we can safely conclude they refer to the same thing. To confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus results in salvation and can ony be done by the Holy Ghost.
To understand what the two verses are taking about we return to 1Corinthians 14:14-15, "For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I wil pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also." Here praying with the spirit is distinguished from praying with the understanding. The understanding refers to the thoughts of the mind, whereas the spirit refers to the spirit of God that is in the believing Christian. It can be seen that to speak with the spirit and to say Jesus is Lord by the Holy Ghost refers to the context of speaking in tongues.
This can also be seen by a study of Romans 10:9-10 & 13. Verse 13 says, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." To pray to God is basically the same thing as calling out to God for help. So we can pray with the spirit of God and we can callupon the name of the Lord with the spirit of God. This is what results in the salvation referred to in Romans 10:9-10, 13 and Acts 2:21.
God's word interprets 1Corinthians 12:3 from two angles: One from 1Corinthians 14:14-15, and the other from Romans 10:9-10 & 13 as well as a study of Acts 2:21 in the context of verses 11-21.
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