One of the reasons for my embracing Charismatic theology back in the day, despite certain misgivings based on the problems it caused, was that the spiritual gifts apparently exercised by Charismatics were in the Bible. I was never really convinced by the cessationist explanations that they had been withdrawn by God because no longer necessary after the apostolic age. To put it more directly, the Bible did not teach that they had, or would be, withdrawn, making the claim mere speculation. It seemed to me that, for instance, prophecies like those of Agabus, warning of famine or of the imminent danger for Paul, would be as useful today as then, and I still think so.
Here are three reasons why my reasoning was faulty. Mea culpa. But first I think it’s necessary to make some observations about cessationists. One is that most cessationists I’ve come across do not deny that God does miracles to this day – their claim is rather that these are not expressed as common gifts available to all Christians. And this, of course, raises the question of whether the Bible actually teaches that they ever were common and available to all Christians.
A second observation is that it is important to factor in how much modern cessationism, in the strict sense of saying the “supernatural gifts” have been withdrawn, has arisen in direct response to the Charismatic/Pentecostal model. Where this is the case, it is easy for a cessationist to accept the account of spiritual gifts offered by Pentecostals as biblical, but then to say that it no longer applies. This is a potentially mistaken approach if the Pentecostals have misunderstood what the Bible teaches on their nature. If, for example, “prophesying” actually has the meaning given to it by seventeenth century Puritans, that is applying the Bible to a current situation, then they did not believe it had ever been withdrawn, and neither would modern cessationists. Why should we accept Charismatic definitions of prophecy, or other gifts, over longer-established understandings, especially since biblical scholarship is not their strong card?
So here follow the three errors in my own former thinking – there are probably even more I haven’t realised yet. The first was to assume, as Charismatics do, that when Paul says “the church” in the following passage, he means “your Corinthian church and every other church too.”
And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. (1 Corinthians 12:28-31)
But I should have realised that the very first gift in the list, “apostles,” discredits that assumption. Before the NAR and its predecessor Latter Rain Cults developed their authoritarian “five-fold ministry” model, only a few Charismatics toyed with the idea that there are still apostles today, using the word in loose senses like “pioneer missionaries.” But in 1 Corinthians, Paul is clearly referring to real eye-witness apostles like himself and Peter, with authority to establish and enforce doctrine – and there were none of those in the church at Corinth when he wrote the letter, and they certainly did die out within decades. Cessationists are right there, at least.
Nevertheless, the biblical statement was true, because God had appointed apostles in the church, meaning the worldwide Church, and they still serve us today through their writings, which are permanent manifestations of the Spirit. That universal or catholic sense determines the scope of the whole list, so that all we can say with certainty is that all these ministries and gifts existed somewhere within the body of Christ, for the sake of the whole body – not just the small part living in Corinth. We might similarly say, truly, that God has appointed in the church systematic theologians, translators, textual critics, mass-evangelists and prisoners for Christ, but there is a high chance that your church hasn’t a single one as a member, and is not praying to get one, either.
Paul does seem to know that Corinth has prophets and tongues-speakers aboard, but miracles and healings might, for all we know, have largely been limited to the apostles and particular men like Stephen and Philip, whose giftings in that line may have been recorded in Scripture for the very reason that they were unusual. And so where there seem to be authentic accounts, past or present, of extraordinary healings or miracles, of missionaries temporarily empowered to preach in a local tongue unknown to them, or of people who seem to have prophesied events to the high standard laid down in Scripture, we could say that these gifts have not only continued, but might be as common, or rather rare, as they were in the early Church, and yet Charismatic teaching thoroughly mistaken.
My second error was in taking for granted both the meaning of the word “gifts” and those of the individual gifts. Once again, the example of “apostles” is useful. The New Apostolic Reformation claims to have apostles aplenty, and even to generate them through ordination regularly. Bethel’s School of Supernatural Ministry probably even has an Apostleship course, if you pay enough for it. But they neither mean eye-witnesses to the resurrection, nor those sent out to spread the teaching of Jesus, but instead authoritarian leaders running big-business ministries and misusing the Bible, or superceding its authority altogether with novel doctrines. In practice it also seems to mean having private jets and large mansions, and taking their pick of the young ladies (or men) under their authority. This is not the New Testament gift of apostleship.
In New Testament times, “prophecy” did not mean speaking off the top of one’s head predictions that come true even less often than random guesses would. A prophet who prophesied falsely was a false prophet, and thus no prophet at all. If, according to Wimber, modern prophecy is right 25% of the time (or some such figure), the Christian’s best response is either to ignore it, or assume the opposite is true. But actually 25% is highly overgenerous.
Almost certainly by “words of knowledge” Paul simply meant sharing what one knows from Scripture, as “word of wisdom” probably means sharing what one has learned from godly experience. It seems likely that “word of knowledge” gained its present meaning of “clairvoyance about people in the congregation” quite early in the twentieth century, when celebrity Pentecostal showmen used telephone directories and prayer cards, plus a bit of stage mentalism, to impress their “marks.” A number of researchers for modern prophets, including family members, have spilled the beans on how they trawl social media and the internet for more efficient “revelations” – some “prophets” even get away with reading the information off their phones onstage, without apparently exciting suspicion. The present definition arose from the shady practice, so even if a more honest person gets stuff right by subconscious clues, it’s not the gift mentioned in 1 Corinthians.
Pentecostal tongues, as I’ve described in previous posts, proved early on, through the bitter experience of missionaries arriving untrained in foreign lands, not to be foreign languages at all. And so the comfortable folks back home redefined them as a private prayer language, and as such tongues are taught today, and extensive research has always shown that they never have the markers of actual languages. But the Bible undoubtedly says the real gift is that of languages with objective meaning (1 Corinthians 14:10), and that interpretation is actual translation, so that whatever Charismatic glossolalia is, it ain’t what’s in the Bible. So it’s unbiblical.
Discernment, nowadays, seems only able to discern that all the preachers you like are saints (as in the case of British Charismatics failing to see through the Kansas City prophets, or the “apostles” endorsing Mike Bickle or Todd Bentley), or that any problem in everyone else is a demon. In the New Testament the gift of discernment called out such false teachers, and proved it from the Bible.
As for faith, helping others and gifts of administration, they don’t seem supernatural enough to attract much interest at all in Charismatic circles. unless, of course, it’s FAITH for a billion soul harvest, in which case it’s the decreeing that matters, rather than the outcome.
As for the word “gifts” itself, the Greek “charismata” really means something like “distributions of grace.” So a Holy Spirit gift of healing or miracle is as likely to mean a sick person getting better, or a miracle itself in response to prayer, as some individual having the power to make people fall over by waving their jacket at them, or to perform the old stage trick of lengthening legs that were never short in the first place (trust me, I measured leg length hundreds of times for a living when I specialised in treating back pain).
Now, I’ll wager that most Evangelicals have witnessed remarkable answers to prayer, as have many cessationists. They even occasionally seem to occur in Megachurch settings, though why God would dignify those ministries with such blessings is a mystery. But of course, for a house-group to find their prayer has cured a serious disease, or for a preacher to be given a prophetic word that comes true (as Daniel Cozens, God bless him, was given for me in 1986), is not the same as saying that the experience of baptism with the Holy Spirit unlocks miraculous ministries, which is the Charismatic teaching. These things simply show that the Holy Spirit is, as he always has been, in the church blowing where he wills, rather than where we will.
My third error was the rather obvious one that the question of whether Scripture teaches the gifts of the Spirit to have continued or ceased is not the same question as whether Charismatics have got them. That second question can be easily tested, and the testing is empirical. Does the Charismatic teaching do what it says on the tin? The investigation of that must, of course, involve critical thinking, discouraged in some Charismatic circles to the point that you must believe you are healed even if you die of your cancer, or you demonstrate that you are an unbeliever.
Well, as I showed in my last post, the fundamental “renewal” experience is an experience in search of a theology. It cannot, on Scriptural grounds, be a “second blessing,” for the Bible is silent on such a thing. The gross abuses seen in the Megachurches demonstrate the truth of this, but show enough continuity with less extreme Charismatic practice to leave the whole nature of the experience without Scriptural support. Pentecostal evangelist Don Double used to say, “If your experience does not match Scripture, my advice is to get a new experience.” Actually, though, that works both ways – if the experience of God you had does not find a basis in Scripture, Scripture trumps experience.
As for the gifts, I simply point to my experience of half a century of failed prophecies, failed healings, non-syntactic tongues, proven fraud, the side-tracking of meetings for “encounter” rather than mutual edification, the repetitive tendency to sideline Scripture, and the downstream effects of spiritual snobbery, pastoral failure, split churches, woeful discernment, neglect of holiness, decline in churchgoing rather than promised revival, and so on. Since the Church has not been built up, what we have been seeing are not spiritual gifts.
My own sense is that if we were to put the “more, Lord, more” ethos aside, and concentrate on gospel preaching, sound teaching, and discipleship, we’d begin to see the real spiritual gifts coming out from under cover, perhaps without even realising that they are spiritual gifts because they’re just what Christians do. Whether that would bring “revival” in the sense of a widespread turning to Christ is (contrary to much of what we have been taught) a matter for God’s providence, not necessarily involving IHOP’s 24-hour prayer or a 7-Mountain Mandate. But all other things being equal, a healthy tree is going to bear much fruit. It’s happened before.
