Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Charisma (χάρισμα): you’ve been told this word means spiritual gift. An entire group of Christians take their name from it, the charismatics. The debate between charismatics and cessationists centers around whether spiritual gifts are still active today or if they ceased since the time of the apostles. But what if this word doesn’t mean exactly what we thought it meant?
Paul uses this exact Greek word for righteousness, for eternal life, and even for something that God gave to the Jews for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. None of those are spiritual gifts in the normal sense. So what does this word really mean? In this video, I’m gonna show you the biblical data one piece at a time.
Now, there are four main reasons, at least four reasons, that I can find, why χάρισμα does not mean spiritual gift. Each of those reasons has several pieces of supporting evidence. [00:01:00] If you look at the timestamps for this video, you can jump to any piece of the argument at any time. Under each reason is several pieces of evidence that supports that reason. The first reason is based on just simply the form of the Greek word. So for looking at that, we’re going to use this book, Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek by Bruce Metzger.
This is a really useful book overall to help you memorize Greek vocabulary and understand the connections between different words. But we’re gonna look at what it says about this ending -μα at the end of χάρισμα and how that helps us understand the word. We’ll also look at this Greek English lexicon.
This is a massive book, commonly known as BDAG. It’s the most well known and considered most authoritative Greek lexicon for the New Testament and other Christian writings, [00:02:00] as it says. Beyond those two resources, we’ll also look at the actual usage of this word χάρισμα in the New Testament.
So reason two, why χάρισμα does not mean spiritual gift is that it often means some other kind of gift.
The third reason is the inverse of reason two: it’s that there are other Greek words which are used in the sense of spiritual gift, and we’ll look at several examples of those in the New Testament. These are especially words like δωρεά, which comes from the Greek verb “to give.” Or the word πνευματικός which is something having to do with the spirit, πνεῦμα.
The fourth reason is that even when χάρισμα seems to mean spiritual gift or some sense very close to that, like in First Corinthians chapter 12, we’ll see in those lists of spiritual gifts that Paul’s lays out, that he doesn’t use the word χάρισμα in exactly the same way [00:03:00] relating to each member of that list of spiritual gifts. There are subtleties involved in how exactly Paul uses the word. Okay, I’ll turn to my computer now and share the screen with you so that we can look at all the evidence together.
The first reason χάρισμα does not mean spiritual gift is just based on the formation of the Greek word itself. So χάρισμα has two pieces, χαρισ- and -μα, and we’ll see the ending -μα just refers to, a certain type of noun, and it’s the noun that’s the result of an action. So what’s the action?
The action relates to the first part, the χαρισ- part of the word. As I’ll show in these lexicons, χάρις is really what we translate grace, usually in the New Testament. In a shorthand sense, it’s the result of grace is χάρισμα. So let’s look at that in more detail. So first I’m gonna show you the [00:04:00] electronic version of this book.
Lexical aids for students of New Testament Greek. In that book, Bruce Metzger goes through different pieces of word formation, especially suffixes and what different suffixes mean for nouns, adjectives and verbs. So we’re specifically looking at nouns because χάρισμα is a noun.
As I scroll through here, we can see a few different suffixes. So an agent, and I’ll just explain a few of these before we get to the -μα suffix, just so you get the sense of it. He uses baptizing as an example because the word, the words related to baptizing, Baptist are very similar between Greek and English.
So this is an easy example to understand. So first we have an agent. Which is indicated by the suffix -της, which is Tau Eta Sigma. [00:05:00] So we have this root βαπτισ-, and then we add on the suffix -της. He also tells us that this word is actually derived from βαπτίζω, which is a verb. So this verb is I baptize.
But then we take the root of it and change the ending, add the -της, and we get a noun. One who baptized. Same thing for μαθητής. So μανθάνω is to learn or I learn, but then we take the root and add on the suffix -της in order to derive the noun for a learner. Or usually we would say disciple in the Bible.
And then we have this other example here about an action -μος and -σις. So βαπτισμός. So again, the same root as [00:06:00] before as we saw above, but a different ending. And again, this is derived from the same verb. So βαπτισμός is the washing or the purification itself. So there’s the act of baptizing, which is literally to wash or to purify. The noun coming from this, which is the act of doing that is βαπτισμός, and there are other examples down below here.
Now the result of an action is indicated by -μα, Metzger tells us. So again, same root, but now we have a different ending, -μα. So this is again from βαπτίζω, but this noun, it’s not the washing itself, it’s the fact that the baptism happened. So this is, this gets a little abstract. βάπτισμα is a little [00:07:00] hard to understand, but I think these other examples are easier.
So, γράφω is the verb to write here, and it has this root γραμ-, we put the suffix -μα on there, and this is something written, so it’s the result of the verb. Which is writing, which is a thing written, and really an actual usage, that means a letter. It’s like a letter of the alphabet is γράμμα.
Similar here we have the verb κηρύσσω, root κήρυγ-, and then we tack on the -μα. So this verb is I proclaim or I preach. Then the thing proclaimed is the κήρυγμα and then Metzger continues, he tells us some other examples for nouns, but we don’t really need to know those here ’cause we got to -μα and that’s really what we [00:08:00] care about for this word, χάρισμα. So keep that in mind, -μα is the result of an action according to Metzger.
So next let’s look at BDAG to understand the χαρισ- part. Now this is the electronic version of BDAG. So this huge physical book I have here. I also have it on Logos in an electronic form. It’s practically much easier to work with in the electronic format.
I like to have both. But if you’re using Logos and you’re using that for Bible study, it’s easy to go from words in the Bible to see the definition in BDAG or in other lexicon. So the electronic version is probably more useful. And that’s what I have shown on the screen now. So here’s the word under consideration, χάρισμα there’s a lot of information on this page.
You can mostly ignore that for now. So what we have in BDAG is [00:09:00] the extended definition, and then we also have, after that, in italic bold, we have suggested translation equivalents. So favor bestowed is pretty close. That’s a Greek, or that’s an English phrase that’s pretty close to the meaning of this Greek word.
Same thing for gift. It’s pretty close. Obviously context is the final determiner of how this word should be translated or understood. Extended definition: that which is freely and graciously given. So notice the word grace. So we’re gonna come to that word grace more frequently as we trace this back. What do I mean by trace back?
Well in parentheses, after this word, BDAG tells us another Greek word, χαρίζομαι. What that means is that the word χάρισμα is formed, the noun χάρισμα is formed from the verb χαρίζομαι. So in order to really track this down, we are going to [00:10:00] need to go to χαρίζομαι. χαρίζομαι BDAG tells us is coming from the word χάρις.
And we don’t see a definition here because it’s further down. So χαρίζομαι BDAG is telling us has several distinct definitions. So the first one is to give freely as a favor. Give graciously notice. That’s a verb. It’s defining it as a verb. Second definition to cancel a sum of money that is owed.
Cancel. Third definition to show oneself gracious by forgiving wrongdoing could be translated as forgive or pardon into English. And then I don’t know if there’s more. Okay, that’s the, that’s it. So χάριν is not quite, that’s the accusative of χάρις. Okay. That’s too much detail. We don’t need to know that.
So going back to the entry for χαρίζομαι, BDAG points us to χάρις. So let’s go there. So here we have [00:11:00] χάρις and parentheses here refers us to this must be Homer. I assume that’s Homer, although we would need to jump to the abbreviation list. Yeah. And this is one reason electronic version is so useful because you have, it’s hyperlinked to the Bible. Abbreviations are also hyperlinked to the list of abbreviations, so you can quickly look it up and see, okay, that abbreviation meant Homer, as in the Iliad and the Odyssey. So now let’s go back. So there’s not a, another word from which χάρις is derived.
We’ve kind of traced this word back to its root χάρισμα, back to its root, which is in χάρις, and that’s dating all the way back to Homer, which means it’s a really old Greek word. Not only is it present in Plato and Aristotle who are like three hundreds BC. But Homer was like, [00:12:00] I can’t remember exactly, 800 BC or some, somewhere around there.
So this is a very old Greek word. And once again, BDAG, if we scroll down, gives us quite a few different definitions. A winning quality or attractiveness that invites a favorable reaction. Graciousness, attractiveness, a beneficent disposition towards someone favor grace, gracious. And then even has sub definitions here.
We aren’t gonna go into all of this. Basically the word is meaning grace. So χάρις grace, and then -μα is an action proceeding from the, like the giving of grace. So that’s the form of the word. You notice there’s nothing in there that talks explicitly about spiritual. There’s nothing to do with, πνευμα, which is the word for spirit, has nothing to do with the word χάρισμα.
So if we’re making that connection between χάρισμα [00:13:00] and the spirit or spiritual gift, that connection is totally coming from the context: the other words that Paul or another New Testament writer is using around the word χάρισμα. So this is the first reason why χάρισμα does not mean spiritual gift. But that’s not really enough because we can look at Greek morphology and the forms of words and etymology all we want.
But the ultimate determiner of meaning is actual usage by actual authors, not these sort of theoretical argument, these theoretical, arguments and data are helpful, but they’re not the determining factor. So let’s look at the second reason now. The second reason χάρισμα does not mean spiritual gift, is that it’s often used of other types of gifts and a lot of the evidence, really all the evidence that I’m gonna focus on in this part of for reason number two, is coming from the [00:14:00] book of Romans. So Paul uses the word χάρισμα quite a bit in the book of Romans, and let’s look at several of those examples now.
So I’m gonna go within my software to a Bible word study tool for χάρισμα, and I’ve already entered in χάρισμα. The first three here are shorthand lexical definitions, so from different lexicons.
So BDAG says favor bestowed, or gift. And then the other two lexicons are also useful, but they don’t really tell us anything different in this case. So let’s scroll down to this pie chart here for χάρισμα.
So you notice that we have this 17 here means that the word appears 17 times in the New Testament. And this little chart is showing you where it appears. Now, obviously you don’t know exactly where that is, just based on this, unless you have memorized the [00:15:00] distribution of New Testament books.
But I can tell you this is, I think Romans, and this is First Corinthians. Now, out of those 17 times. This shows us that the Greek word χάρισμα is translated as gift or gifts most of the time, and maybe once or twice. That’s probably just once as blessing.
So let’s click on blessing and then Logos will show us the example. So this is 2nd Corinthians 1:11. You also must help us by prayer. So that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many. I wasn’t planning to go into this example, but real quick, this is just Paul asking for the prayers of the Corinthian church for help for himself in a practical situation.
And we could click on this and look at it in more detail [00:16:00] what that situation is, but it’s not relating to what we usually think of as spiritual gifts. The gift of tongues, the gift of prophecy, the gift of teaching.
So if we click this big chunk of the pie chart, which is 16 out of 17 of the uses of χάρισμα in the New Testament. Then Logos will show us all those examples. The first one I wanna show you is Romans 5:15 and 5:16, because it’s used several times in those passages. So let’s just look at this in English first.
But the free gift is not like the trespass for if many died through one man’s trespass. And I’ll, let me see if I can make that bigger. There we go. That’s, that should be easier for you to read. For if many died through one man’s trespass. How much more have the grace of God and the free gift?
By the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ [00:17:00] abounded for many and the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin for the judgment. Following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. So the first thing you notice here is there are a bunch of instances of free gift in this passage, right?
I think I noticed at least four there. Okay. Now, the fact, why does, why does Logos highlight some of these in yellow and others not? Well, that’s because the ones highlighted are related to this word χάρισμα that we’re looking at the other instances. These two are not coming from the word χάρισμα.
They’re coming from something else. Now that’s, that doesn’t real. So these examples, this shows you the ambiguity that there are two different Greek words that can be used for free gift, but it’s not directly relevant to our argument right now. [00:18:00] Remember, I’m, I’m trying to argue that the word χάρισμα does not mean spiritual gift, does not uniquely mean spiritual gift.
It doesn’t map one-to-one onto the word spiritual gift. I’m not arguing specifically about free gift. So the fact that Paul uses some other Greek word for free gift doesn’t really have a direct bearing on our topic for today or what I’m trying to prove, but these other examples do. So here at the beginning of 5:15 and the end of 5:16, the ESV version is what this is, is translating the word χάρισμα as free gift in both of those instances. So that is evidence for the point that I’m trying to prove. And the context here is, is what, so the free gift here is coming through Jesus Christ. And if we look at Romans five 17, we’ll see that it’s [00:19:00] justification.
So let’s. Let’s go look at this in context. So I’m jumping now to the passage, but the free gift, and this is a reverse interlinear setting within Logos. So you can see the English word up above free gift. Then underneath is the Greek word that that comes from. So we can see it a few times here. Here’s another instance of free gift, and this is the word δωρεά.
So δωρεά and down here, δώρημα, both of those instances come from the verb to give in Greek is δίδωμι. The root is *δο. So from that root we derive the verb to give, and we also derive these nouns which are gifts.
You notice that linguistically, this word δωρεά, is similar to the English word gift, because in English there’s a [00:20:00] verb to give, right? Which means I’m giving you something, and then the thing I give you is a gift. Give, gift are obviously related, just like δωρεά and δίδωμι, are related in Greek. Whereas when we translate χάρισμα as free gift, that gift is not coming from δίδωμι. It’s coming from this idea of grace and a thing freely given by grace.
Now let’s go down and read 17. I know there’s, this is really busy. There’s a lot of information here. We already read. Okay. There’s verse 17, so verse 17 starting right here and it ends at this point. For if because of one man’s trespass death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. So again, [00:21:00] here’s another instance of free gift and its δωρεᾶς, So it’s coming from δίδωμι.
What is the free gift? It’s righteousness. And so I’m arguing that in this case, χάρισμα [REFERS TO] righteousness. Now, that’s not absolutely set in stone, right? Because the instance of free gift used right before Righteousness δικαιοσύνης, that is coming from δωρεᾶς, not from χάρισμα, but the way most English versions translate this, maybe all English versions, I don’t know, is that those instances of χάρισμα and δωρεά in these three verses of Romans are both hoing back to the same thing. They’re just emphasizing different aspects of it by using different Greek words, but the referent of those words is actually the same thing, and it’s the gift of God. And I think that’s not an unreasonable [00:22:00] interpretation.
We could look at that in more detail and see if there’s any nuance there. But I don’t think that’s a stretch. So I’m gonna conclude from this, that the free gift, the χάρισμα, referring back earlier is righteousness, and not just righteousness, but it’s also this reigning or this authority in life.
So remember, he’s also contrasting death and life, right? Death right here, reigned through Adam, and now those who are justified in Christ will reign in life. So these are three different things. One is righteousness, two is the reigning, and three is the life. And those are all intrinsically connected to this free gift, this χάρισμα, this thing coming out of an act of grace.
Now let’s go back to the Bible Word study tool. That was [00:23:00] Romans 15. And then I also wanted to look at Romans 11:29 as evidence of this point. For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. So let’s jump there. We need a little more context. So starting here in verse 28, and then we’re gonna read 28 and 29.
So this section is what we’re interested in. As regards to the gospel, they referring to the Jews are enemies for your sake, but as regards election, they’re beloved for the sake of their forefathers. So this is why I mentioned Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob earlier, right? ’cause God made the covenant with those forefathers, πατέρας in Greek, and the results of the covenant is still flowing down to the Jew.
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Here gifts is χαρίσματα. So why is this [00:24:00] not simply χάρισμα? Well, it is the same word, but instead of this adding this bit on the end, Tau alpha just makes it plural. So χάρισμα is singular, charismata is plural. So here the gifts, the ca charismata are being referred to something given to the Jews that’s for the sake of the forefathers. That’s flowing down because of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Paul doesn’t really explain exactly what that gift or that gracious that result of grace is in this passage. It’s pretty clear he’s not talking about spiritual gifts in the sense we would usually use it.
So now let’s do, there was one more example here, Romans 1:11. Now this is also an interesting example because Paul uses the term spiritual gifts. So here the Greek is πνευματικὸν [00:25:00] χάρισμα. An outpouring of grace that has a spiritual quality to it. So we translate spiritual gift.
And Paul is saying, I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. So the idea here is this spiritual gift is gonna strengthen you, the Roman church. And then he explains it in more detail. By saying, in other words, the gift that I want to give is that we would be encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.
So I’ll encourage you. You’ll encourage me, and that’s the spiritual gift that we’re giving each other. I don’t think in this passage, Paul is saying that he’s gonna come and lay hands on them and that that’s going to give them the gift of tongues or, although there are examples in the Bible where that happened, based on this context I don’t think that’s what he’s saying.
Now let’s [00:26:00] turn to the third reason why χάρισμα does not mean spiritual gift. So like I said earlier, this is the inverse of the second reason that other words, other Greek words, are used in the New Testament that are clearly given the meaning of spiritual gift in those contexts.
For that we’re gonna look at Ephesians. Then the other example is πνευματικος, which is basically things pertaining to the spirit, and that’s gonna be translated as spiritual gift in some Bible verse. So for this, since we’re, remember before we looked at this tool to tell us, okay, where the Greek New Testament used the word χάρισμα, show us all the instances of that and we found 17. 16 of those were translated gift. Now, this is not the right tool to look at the inverse question, which is about other Greek words. So how am I gonna do [00:27:00] that? I’m gonna pull up the search tool in Logos.
And then I’m gonna do a search of my top Bible, which is I have set to ESV for spiritual gift, and we’re gonna see what examples it gives us. So I’m showing side by side, the ESV, maybe I should make that bigger. The ESV and the SBL Greek New Testament. We just looked at Romans 1:11. Now let’s look at 1st Corinthians 12:1 and 14:1. Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. Let’s just click and go there. So this is where Paul is gonna list a bunch of spiritual gifts. And here you notice spiritual gifts comes out from simply τῶν πνευματικῶν.
So this πνευμα- is the spirit and then the -τικῶν part is like things pertaining to the spirit, and then gifs has a dot under it. What [00:28:00] does that dot mean? Just that when they set up this ESV version, they map it back to the Greek words, right? And for gifts, they say, we didn’t really directly map that back to a Greek word.
If you were to do a purely literal translation from Greek to English here, you might say, now concerning, the spiritual things, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. Because this word tone is not specifying the nature of those things.
That’s why I just use the vague English word things. It’s just some noun, plural that has to do concerning the spirit. So that would be a literal translation. Then if we go down Paul says, now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord and varieties of [00:29:00] activities, and then eventually he’s going to start listing the gifts.
Okay? Utterance of wisdom to another, the utterance of knowledge, and so on. Faith, gifts of healing… so the context makes clear that this translation is valid of spiritual gifts, even though the word gifts is not directly there.
And you notice if we go down to verse four, right here, he does use the word gifts, χαρισμάτων, and it’s coming from χάρισμα. This is another plural form of gifts. Same word, just another plural form.
Okay, so here he does use χαρισμάτων and πνευμάτικῶν above, and they are both referring to this list of gifts, which he’s about to share. Another place where the Bible shares a list of spiritual gifts is in Ephesians. Now notice that when I search spiritual gifts, I [00:30:00] don’t get that Ephesians passage.
Because the ESV translation is not translating it as spiritual gift, it just translates it as gift. So if I change this search to gift, I’m gonna get a lot more 60 results in 54 verses. And I’m really interested in the Ephesians reference. So I’m just gonna scroll down till I find that.
So Ephesians 2:8. By grace, you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. And that’s the word δῶρον. That’s not what I’m looking for. Here we have δωρεάν and, okay, this is actually the example I want.
So Ephesians chapter four is when he is gonna talk about the spiritual gifts. Notice that in Ephesians 4:7 and 4:8, the Greek word that’s relevant is δωρεᾶς and δόματα. So both of those are coming from δίδωμι, the Greek verb to give is being turned into nouns in that case, meaning [00:31:00] gifts. If we look at that passage, so if I click on it here, let’s just read it. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
Therefore it says when he ascended on high, he led a coast host of captives and he gave gifts to men. So there’s the word gifts twice, but Paul hasn’t really told us yet what he means by those gifts. We have this long, parenthetical statement here in verses nine and ten. You can read that if you want. And he gave, so notice the word here, ἔδωκεν gave. So that is also coming from δίδωμι. There’s the root *δο. The epsilon in front tells us it’s past tense. So this is Christ is giving the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry.
I don’t like that word, ministry. This is just service. We don’t really [00:32:00] need the word ministry. That’s a pet peeve of mine. For building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith. Of, okay, so I’ve lost some of the context and of the knowledge of the son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Okay. It’s a long run on sentence, which Paul does a lot in Ephesians. The important point is that we have here this list of gifts, apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. And those are being given. And then if we trace that word given back up to the previous context about the word gift, Paul is using words like δωρεά for this gift.
That’s yet another bit of evidence that other Greek words, aside from χάρισμα are used to describe spiritual gifts. Now let’s go back to 1st Corinthians again.
Just scan [00:33:00] through this with me. We already looked at the first part of this, but now let’s get to the list of gifts at the bottom. So, list of gifts is here. So one is given through the spirit, the utterance of wisdom, to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one spirit, to another the work of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits.
Okay, it’s cut off there. What I want you to notice is this gifts. Is only connected to the healing here. If you look in all these other gifts, he doesn’t mention the word gifts. He just says what the gift is. But he always says χαρίσματα ἰαμάτων, gifts of healing. And if we look at First Corinthians as a whole, we will see that over and over again. Let me see if I can pull [00:34:00] it up. So let’s zoom out here. We did a search for gifts and let’s look at the first Corinthians references.
1st Corinthians 12. So these first two instances, he’s talking about spiritual gifts in general, right? And this was πνευματικῶν, this was χαρισμάτων. But then look at the next few instances.
So here we have gifts of healing χαρίσματα ἰαμάτων. And then here we have again, gifts of healing. And then he asked the question, do all possess gifts of healing? But then at the end he goes back to talking about all the gifts because he’s referring to the higher gifts, specifically prophecy.
So what’s the point? These three examples when he’s listing the spiritual gifts, every single time he lists the gift of healing. He uses that word [00:35:00] χαρίσματα, plural, gifts, plural of healing. For all the other particular gifts he never restates the word charismatic. So I don’t know what to conclude for that from that, if that’s important or not, but it was just a feature I noticed that made me go, you know, even in the case where this word χάρισμα is definitely used to refer to spiritual gifts.
It’s a little odd how exactly Paul uses it, because sometimes he uses that word to refer to all the gifts, obviously in 1st Corinthians 12:4 and in 12:31. Then when he lists the gifts, he specifically calls out gifts of healing as being charismata.
Okay, so those are my four reasons for saying that χάρισμα does not mean spiritual gift. Obviously, that broad statement has to be qualified. What I really mean, if you want to think of it in terms of really careful [00:36:00] philosophical argument, is that χάρισμα does not map one-to-one with spiritual gift in the Bible. So there are words aside from χάρισμα that are used to describe spiritual gifts.
Inversely, there are instances of the word χάρισμα, even by Paul, not to mention other authors that are used to mean something that’s not a spiritual gift in the sense of prophecy, tongues, that list of gifts that we think of.
So do you find this case compelling? Does it make sense? Have I called out all the nuances sufficiently?
If you have anything to add to this discussion, just put it in the comments below this video. Also, feel free to add any suggestions for future word studies that I’ll do on this channel. I’m planning to do several word study videos in a row here. So if you have suggestions for words you would like covered, please add them to the comments below.[00:37:00]
Thanks for watching.