Spiritual Power, Part 1

"Evangelicals" and "Charismatics"

21^st August 2010

The words "Evangelical" and "Charismatic" are often used to describe belief systems held by certain sorts of Christians. I consider myself to be both an evangelical and a charismatic.

When I say that I'm an "evangelical", I mean that I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He died on the cross to pay for our sins, that through repentance and faith we can be born again into God's kingdom and adopted into His family and that this gives me a real, experiential, relationship with God. I believe that God gives His Holy Spirit to every believer and I believe that every word of the Bible is God-breathed (as Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16) and is infallible.

When I say that I'm a "charismatic", I mean that I believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit and, in particular, those listed in 1 Corinthians 12, are real and are available for the church today.

I also believe that every evangelical should also be a "charismatic", and this column is an attempt to explain why.

If we gladly accept that the Bible is God-breathed and infallible, then we have to accept that passages like Ephesians 5:18b "be filled with the Holy Spirit", 1 Corinthians 12:7 "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good" and the verses that follow it, and 1 Corinthians 14:1, which says "follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy" are true.

Some evangelicals try to avoid these verses by claiming that spiritual gifts died out in the first century. The problem is: the Bible doesn't say that they would. Would we ever say that forgiveness died out in the first century? Or grace? Or that the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus stopped working after the first century? Of course not! So how can we say such things about spiritual gifts?

Also, there is also evidence in many, many churches today that spiritual gifts still exist. I'm happy to tell you that I use spiritual gifts.

So why do so many good evangelicals believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit do not, and should not, exist today, and that they haven't existed for 1900 years? It must be either because we find it difficult to believe in the power gifts today or we because don't want to. Here are some reasons why that might be so:

1. We remember churches going through painful divisions about these things, and we don't want that to happen again.
2. We have heard stories about "charismatics" doing weird things in the name of the Holy Spirit and we don't want our church to become weird.
3. We don't like "charismatic" styles of worship.
4. We're prayed for spiritual gifts before and nothing seemed to happen.
5. We've never seen them, and it is hard to believe in something we have no first-hand evidence for.

To summarise, we don't believe in spiritual gifts today, either because we fear receiving too much of them, or because we fear receiving too little of them. Or we do believe theoretically but we don't want to get involved. I'd like to look at these things briefly.

Firstly, we may be concerned about church unity being damaged if some of us embrace the gifts of the Holy Spirit and others don't. This is a genuine danger, but we should manage it by being graceful and accepting of each other, rather than by stifling the work of the Holy Spirit. Church unity has been damaged in the past by charismatics insisting that they are holier than non-charismatics, and by non-charismatics showing resentment when charismatics do things that are clearly scriptural, and by charismatics doing weird stuff and blaming the Holy Spirit for their own weirdness, which leads on to Point 2. But choosing both to remain within Biblical teaching and to respect one another must be a possible and preferable alternative to quenching the Holy Spirit.

Secondly, then, it is undeniable that some charismatics have done some things that are crazy, stupid, and even demonic. It is understandable that people would like to avoid this! But just because some charismatics have done daft things doesn't mean that all charismatics will. All Christian groupings, including the great 16th century reformers: Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Luther, John Calvin and others, did some things that we would consider to be quite wrong, as well as much that was wonderfully right. But we don't ignore all protestant teaching, or refuse to be in relationship with Reformed and Lutheran Christians because they and their followers made some mistakes. All churches, all denominations, all movements, are tainted by sin and error. We should receive with gladness that which is Biblical and holy, and refuse that which is heretical and fleshly. It's the same with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We should earnestly desire them, while refusing the errors that have been associated with some who use them.

Thirdly, some charismatics may worship our Lord in ways that we would find uncomfortable or boring. But believing in spiritual gifts and being willing to obey God by using them doesn't commit us to any particular form of worship. Although the two things have been associated in our minds in our generation, it does not have to be so. And there are many churches in which it is not so.

Fourthly, there are people who have earnestly sought spiritual gifts and have not yet received them. That can be so frustrating that we give up, but Jesus promised us:

Luke 11:9-13
"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

Fifthly, if you've never seen a miracle, or never given a prophesy, it can be hard to believe that such a thing is really possible. I have seen miracles, and I have delivered prophesies, and used other gifts, but there was a time when I hadn't, and it was difficult then to understand or believe in such things. But may I remind you of the day you came to saving faith in Jesus Christ? Until that moment, you had little first-hand evidence of what it would be like to yield your life to God. You took a step of faith. And praying for spiritual gifts and then actually using them is like that - we take steps of faith, trusting God that the Bible is reliable.