The Foretaste

1 Corinthians 1:7 "so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Read the verse in front of you again, slowly. There’s more in it than most of us have ever noticed.

Paul has been listing what God has done for the Corinthians at the beginning of his letter. He’s named them. He’s called them saints. He’s reminded them that they’ve been enriched in Christ in every way. And then, in verse seven, he tells them something most of us read right past.

"You are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ."

There are four words in that one sentence that deserve to be sat with for a long time.

The first is the verb Paul uses for lacking. In Greek it is hystereisthai, from a root meaning to fall short, to be behind, to be inferior. Paul tells the Corinthians, of all churches, that they aren’t deficient in any way the Spirit gives. Not partially equipped. Not waiting on a future deposit. Not deficient at all in what God supplies for the Christian life. And what is true of Corinth is true of Bayside.

The second is charisma. We get our English word charisma from it, but the New Testament range is wider and deeper than personality charm. A charisma is a gift of grace. The same word Paul will use in chapter 12 for the gifts of the Spirit. Every divine endowment, every grace-deposit, every Spirit-given enablement for the Christian life. The Corinthians had no shortage of any of them, and neither do we.

The third word is the Greek participle for wait (apekdechomenous). This isn’t casual waiting, the way you wait in line at a store. This is leaning-forward, eager, intense waiting. The same word Paul uses in Romans 8:23 of believers groaning for the redemption of their bodies, and in Romans 8:25 of patient waiting for what we don’t yet see. This is the waiting of a child watching the door for a parent who said they’d be home by six.

And the fourth word is apokalypsis. The revealing. The unveiling. The disclosure. The pulling-back of the curtain. This is the word that gives us the title of the last book of the New Testament. Paul deliberately picks the word for an unveiling, not just a return.

Christ is currently, in this present moment of history, hidden. The world doesn’t see Him. The unbeliever walks past Him every day and never recognizes Him. Even the believer sees Him by faith, not by sight. Paul says it plainly in 2 Corinthians 5:7: "we walk by faith, not by sight." The Christ who saved us is currently veiled to the visible world. He is real. He is reigning. And He is hidden.

But one day He will not be. One day the veil comes off. Every eye will see Him (Rev 1:7). Every knee will bow (Phil 2:10). Every tongue will confess (Phil 2:11). And the same Lord we’ve been loving by faith we will love by sight. That is the apokalypsis Paul has in view.

Now hold the two halves of Paul's sentence together. You aren’t lacking in any spiritual gift. As you wait for the revealing.

Why does Paul connect those two things?

Because the gifts are for the waiting. The Spirit's work in us right now is precisely calibrated for the in-between season, the time after the cross and before the unveiling. We’ve been given gifts to sustain a waiting people in a hidden Christ.

Paul makes the connection explicit in Ephesians 1. He writes there that the Holy Spirit is the arrabōn of our inheritance (Eph 1:14). A first-century Greek commercial word. It meant the down payment. The earnest deposit that guarantees the full payment is coming. The first installment of what is fully on its way. The Spirit in you, right now, is the down payment on the glory you will fully enter when Christ is revealed.

This changes everything about how we treat the gifts.

The peace the Spirit gives you on a Friday morning is already a foretaste of the peace that will saturate the new earth when Christ is unveiled. The joy that breaks unexpectedly into a hard week is already a sample of the joy that will fill eternity. The love you feel for the people of God in the pew next to you is already the first installment of the love that will gather every tribe and tongue and nation around the throne.

John puts it tenderly in his first letter. "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). What we will be has not yet appeared. But what we are has already begun. The gifts of the Spirit in us right now are the slow inauguration of who we are about to become.

Today: Set a timer for five minutes. Read 1 Corinthians 1:7 aloud, slowly, once. Then close your eyes and let the four parts land in their own time. Not lacking. Gift. Waiting. Revealing. Let the Spirit who is the down payment of your inheritance carry the verse into the places of your life that need it.

Prayer: "Father, I worship You for the Spirit who is sufficient. Thank You for filling the in-between season with previews of the glory we haven’t yet seen. Open my eyes today to the foretaste, and turn my heart toward the day You will pull back the veil. In Jesus' name, Amen."

-PK