Those extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit were then so obvious and so acknowledged by all Christians that those who wished to impose and deceive found no more successful method than by claiming to be themselves immediately inspired by the Spirit. The saints were thereby provided with some who were enabled in extraordinary manner to judge and determine those who claimed to be specially endowed by the Spirit but when the extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit ceased, this particular gift was also withdrawn, so the Christians are now left with the Word alone by which to measure and try all who claim to be the mouthpiece of God. This passage makes known to us God s design in the miraculous gifts of the Spirit at the beginning of this dispensation. A very few words must now suffice upon them. Now that all of these special impulses and extraordinary gifts of the Spirit were not intended to be perpetuated throughout this Christian dispensation, and that they have long since ceased, is clear from several conclusive considerations.
Love never fails.
Now in the first place there is not a single statement in all the New Testament that the practice which obtained at Corinth prevailed generally in other churches of that day, still less that the assemblies of the saints in all generations were to be patterned after their order. Rather is there much to show that what obtained at Corinth was not the regular mode established by Christ and His Apostles. The fact is that not only were the conditions at Corinth merely transitory and exceptional, but they were fraught with much evil. In no other church of apostolic days was there such disorder and carnality. The absence of elders made them like an army without officers, or a school without masters.