a making-manifest: the act of bringing something hidden out into open, public view
This is a noun built from the verb "to make manifest" (φανερόω). It names the moment when something that was concealed steps out into the open, where a whole community can see it. Because it is built on an action word, it hovers between two closely related shades: the act of bringing a thing to light, and the resulting state of that thing on open display. Good translations lean now one way, now the other.
The word is rare, appearing only twice in the New Testament, both times in Paul's letters, and in each place something unseen becomes publicly and communally visible. In one letter it is God's Spirit going public in the shared life of the church; in the other it is the truth of the gospel set out plainly and honestly. What ties the two uses together is this idea of a public, verifiable coming-into-view, the opposite of anything secret, private, or doctored.
It sits close to the more common word for "revelation" (ἀποκάλυψις), but the picture differs: "revelation" imagines a veil being pulled back off a hidden thing, while this word imagines the thing itself out in the open where it can be seen. In its first use it also stands next to the word for a grace-gift (χάρισμα), quietly shifting the focus from the gift a person receives to the Spirit who is making himself known through it.
Nuances
How to read the genitive in "the manifestation of the Spirit" (τοῦ πνεύματος): whether it names the Spirit's own act of making himself public through the gifts (subjective genitive), the bringing-to-light of the otherwise unseen Spirit (objective genitive), or both dimensions at once (plenary genitive).
- majoritySubjective genitive: the gifts are the Spirit making himself openly known in the assembly; the phrase relocates the focus from the recipient's endowment to the Spirit's own agency.; Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT, rev. ed. (Eerdmans, 2014), 651-653; R. Bultmann and D. Lührmann, "φαίνω κτλ.," TDNT 9:6
- minorityPlenary genitive: the subjective and objective readings are a false disjunction; the Spirit acts publicly in the gifts and is thereby made known, both at once.; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC (Eerdmans, 2000), 934-938; David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, BECNT (Baker Academic, 2003), 578-580
- minorityObjective genitive: the manifestation is the operation that makes the otherwise unseen Spirit visible.; Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, ICC, 2nd ed. (T&T Clark, 1914), 263-264