Charismatics and Pentecostals are Disobedient to the Bible
INTRODUCTION
The Charismatic movement is an important force in modern Christianity. In many
places, Charismatics are the only Churchgoers with any enthusiasm or fervour.
The movement promises encounters with the Holy Spirit who does miracles in your
life and changes your life which gives you assurance that Christianity is true.
Like every apologetic for the Church it fails.
A book THE TORONTO BLESSING (Dave Roberts, Kingsway Publications, Eastbourne,
1995) defends the wave of charismatic or Pentecostal lunacy called the Toronto
blessing. It had dour people hysterically laughing like lunatics and quiet
people roaring. People jump up and down and roll over the ground and floor. No
faith has the right to encourage people to behave worse than raging drunks.
Jeremiah 23:9 has the prophet of God declare that he is like a drunk man because
he is so high on the word of God. It was concluded by supporters of the
phenomena that if people behaved very oddly that we should not judge it by this
but by the general good fruits they produce.
FAULTY PROOFS FOR CHARISMATICS
In Joel 2, God promises that before the end of the world he will pour out his
Spirit on all flesh causing young men to have dreams from God and young women to
prophesy and there would be visions.
Charismatics think they fulfil the prediction – without reason. They can see
from the context that it is to happen after Israel returned to their land and
renovate it into a paradise. This hasn’t happened yet. The prediction can be
reconciled with the New Testament doctrine that there will be no charism until
God is united with his people so fully that he extends Heaven to earth. This
would indicate that the Charismatics are self-deluding frauds.
Charismatics might object that Peter said the Pentecost experience of the early
Church was the beginning of the fulfilment of the prophecy (Acts 2:16). This
allows them to say that the rest of the prophecy will be fulfilled later. But if
it was really the beginning then why did the Charismatics disappear from the
Church for centuries only to reappear in the latter days?
Charismatics take some verses or supernatural gifts out of context to make them
say the opposite.
Matthew 10:1-23: Jesus gives the seventy the power to do marvels like healing
the sick and casting out demons. But he did not say that these healings and
exorcisms were to be miracles. He may have just been telling them to help others
in the same way a non-Charismatic Church would do it which is by praying and
good deeds.
Mark 16 is supposed to promise Charismatic powers to all who believe. Jesus told
the eleven apostles: “Go into all the world and preach and publish openly the
good news (the Gospel) to every creature [of the whole human race]. He who
believes [who adheres to and trusts in and relies on the Gospel and Him Whom it
sets forth] will be condemned. And these attesting signs will accompany those
who believe: in My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new
languages; They will pick up serpents; and [even] if they drink anything deadly,
it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will get
well” (16:15-18).
This one is rich for Jesus could only speak Aramaic and
we are told to believe that he had the Holy Spirit! And this is the
Holy Spirit he promised that would help others to speak in languages they never
learned to communicate with Gentiles! He supposedly made the apostles able
to talk to every tongue on the day of Pentecost. Did Jesus have the Holy
Spirit at all? He could not speak his own language for at times his
talking was impossible to make sense of.
Charismatics say that it promises miraculous powers to all who believe in the
apostles’ word. Some however maintain that Jesus does not say that all will have
these powers. Even most Charismatics believe that they cannot drink weed-killer
and be unaffected.
Notice that the text does not say that some of the people will have the charisms
but all. The persons who get them seem to be those who actually got the word
from the apostles directly. It cannot mean all Christians since the Christians
directly converted by the apostles as well as these original converts because it
is plain to be seen that they cannot all pick up serpents and drink poison
without harm. Charismatics cannot do it either. The believers Jesus has in mind
are those who believe as a result of the mission of the apostles meaning that
generation back then.
It does not state that the charisms will last until the end of time.
The canon of the Bible is the official list of books believed to be authored
ultimately by God. Many orthodox preachers deny that Mark 16:9-20 which is where
the promises occur belongs in the canon thinking that it is a heretical forgery.
If it was, then it was written by one who hoped that people would read the
absurdity of it and go off Jesus. It may not have originally been part of the
gospel. Many ancient manuscripts don’t know of it. The Codex Sinaiticus and the
Codex Vaticanus don’t have it. It seems that Mark ends abruptly at 16:8.
In John 14:12 where Jesus reveals that he who believes in him shall do greater
wonders than he did. But this is the present tense so it refers to those who
believed then. Modern Charismatics cannot do better miracles than Jesus. We
cannot even know if Jesus meant miraculous wonders. A person who spent longer
doing missionary work than Jesus did could be said to have been doing greater
things.
Jesus allegedly promised his Church that the Holy Spirit would be with his
Church forever and lead it into all truth (John 14:16; 16:13). Charismatics
claim to have this enlightening presence. They claim that the promise of Jesus
proves that they are right to claim to have spiritual powers. But the promise
would still be fulfilled by the Holy Spirit guiding people without obvious
miracles. It does not say that everybody will be infallible.
Being indwelled by the Spirit does not mean you are a miracle working
Charismatic. When Paul recorded that some Charismatics can do things like speak
messages from God or heal unlike others he showed that you can have the Spirit
but no charisms (1 Corinthians 12).
The Bible says that Jesus is always the same (Hebrews 13:8) and Charismatic
appeal to this teaching to argue that if Jesus gave charisms once he does it
still. It just means that Jesus is the same kind of good person not a person who
stubbornly takes no account of changing and even immoral attitudes. A good
person has to make changes for the best.
Nowhere in the Bible is there proof that the charisms are still to be practiced.
To try and practice them is to add to the Bible which is forbidden.
NEED TO RECEIVE POWERS VIA APOSTLES
The Bible never says that there is any other way to receive the charisms of
speaking in tongues and doing miracles except through the laying on of hands by
the apostles. In Acts 8, we read that the Samaritans had to do without the gifts
until the apostles laid hands on them. Simon Magus sees the miraculous results
at the apostles’ hands though he was a Christian for a while himself meaning
that he saw nobody else doing it. So in all probability nobody else could really
do it. And this is proven by the fact that Acts details that they did everybody
one by one rather than getting the people who received the power to pass it on
themselves to save time. Then Simon goes and offers Peter money to acquire the
power to give the gifts by laying his hands on people. The fact that Simon Magus
had formerly been popularly regarded as the power of God and a powerful
miracle-worker (which the Bible attributes to magic and occultism thus giving
what must have been tricks a supernatural status) before his conversion which
shows what kind of innocent and naïve and gullible mentality existed in those
days among the people of Jesus. We don’t have anybody like that now! That Simon
had any money to offer is strange since the Bible says the apostles insisted on
a communistic system in which nobody owned anything. The apostles must have
given him special treatment and let him be exempt because he would not have let
them know he had money otherwise. Then he is severely reprimanded. So since the
apostles are not around anymore nobody can have charismatic powers that are
really from God.
Some object, "Nobody laid hands on the apostles. The apostles received the
Charismatic powers at Pentecost when the Spirit came down on them. God can give
the charismatic gifts without requiring you to receive them through an apostle
laying hands on you. God was not strict about the laying on of hands being the
method of transmission."
This is the reply. The apostles may have received the Holy Spirit by him
directly descending upon them. But that doesn't mean that the laying on of hands
on people to give them the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit may not be
confined to the apostles alone. The apostles received the Holy Spirit and the
charismatic powers in a very obviously supernatural way that day. Acts says that
only the apostles were able to speak in tongues that day. Laying on of hands is
only a method of transmission but God worked the same effect through sending the
Holy Spirit on the apostles. There was nobody to lay hands on them. If laying
hands is the only method then God had to make an exception for there was nobody
to do it. The exception proves the rule. The way the Holy Spirit came down first
does not imply anything about how the Spirit's powers should be transmitted. The
spirit can only be transmitted to give magic powers through the authorised
divine channels who have to lay hands to transmit it. Nothing in the Bible
conflicts with this interpretation.
None of the verses that speak of the Holy Spirit being received by faith say
that we can receive the charisms that same way.
Jesus in Mark 16 where he promises gifts to believers does not say they will
last forever. The fact that no charismatic can drink poison these days and go on
as if nothing has happened which is one of the gifts it promises proves that
they were temporary. James 5 which says that the sick man will be raised up by
anointing with oil says nothing about curing. Raised up means spiritually
healed. The pastors were to heal the sick spiritually by praying for them and
not physically. And even if it were physical the shall be raised up promise
means only if it is God’s will. The Bible says the charisms were granted to
confirm the message of the apostles and show that it was from God (Mark 16:20; 1
Corinthians 13; Hebrews 2:3,4) so once the message was clear their purpose was
served and they would be no more.
The New Testament book of Acts speaks of the apostles curing everybody who came
to them. Yet we read later that Paul complains of sickness and advises Timothy
to take a little wine to help his stomach! This supports the belief of many that
the apostles had powers to heal only to get attention drawn to the gospel and to
help them establish Christianity firmly. Later these powers faded and
disappeared altogether.
The Christians cannot claim to have Pentecostal powers when the Bible does not
confirm it. They are adding to the Bible.
The lowest charism which is speaking in tongues is abolished according to
tradition. St John Chrysostom said that the gift of tongues was no longer around
in his day. St Augustine made the same observation. For hundreds of years after
the apostles heretics who were not even Christians and the heretical fanatics,
the Montanists, spoke in tongues and impressed society with their charismatic
gifts. Scripture and tradition are against the modern tongues-speakers.
FROM LUTHERAN OCCULT EXPERT KURT E KOCH
Helge Stadelmann, a young theologian at the Dallas Theological Seminary, USA, wrote to me, Regarding glossolalia (speaking in tongues) Paul's choice of words in I Corinthians 13:8-11 seems to me significant: prophecy and knowledge will be taken away (katargethesontai). Both are described as "in part" (ek merous). This imperfect revelation (propheteia + gnosis) will be taken away (katargethesetai) when the telos (clearly the future consummation, not the canon, as we are often told here in America) comes. Amid this consistent usage, we find the short phrase "eite glossai pausontai." Paul here uses a quite different word (pauomai) and moreover does not say that this gift will be "taken away" when the "telos" comes. Is it permissible to draw the exegetical conclusion that glossolalia will have ceased to some extent on its own initiative (the verb is in the middle voice!) before the coming of the telos? This interpretation would leave open the question of when Biblical "speaking in tongues" will end, for the Bible gives us no information on that point; but a certain tendency toward the disappearance of glossolalia would be confirmed.
From Occult ABC: Exposing Occult Practices and Ideologies.
My note: We should not be confident that the
person with such gifts really has them. The gift may be so
rare that we can consider it abolished.
CONCLUSION
Charismatics and Pentecostals are deluding themselves are are playing ouija
board but with their brains and hearts and certainly not with their logic!
WORKS CONSULTED
BIBLICAL EXEGESIS AND CHURCH DOCTRINE, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press, New York,
1985
CHARISMATIC CHAOS, John F MacArthur, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1992
CHARTING A COURSE THROUGH CHARISMATIC WATERS, Cecil Andrews, Take Heed
Publications, Belfast, 1990
CHRISTIANITY IN CRISIS, Hank Hanegraaff, Harvest House Publishers, Oregon,
COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES, BB Warfield, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1995
FOUR GREAT HERESIES, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee,
1975
LOOKING FOR A MIRACLE, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
NO LAUGHING MATTER, Stanley Jebb, DayOne Publications, Kent, 1995
SPEAKING IN TONGUES, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee,
1971
THE CHARISMATIC CHALLENGE Seamus Milligan, Evangelical Protestant Society,
Belfast, 1987
THE HOLY SPIRIT TODAY, Leith Samuel, Pickering & Inglis, Glasgow, 1978
THE TORONTO BLESSING, Dave Roberts, Kingsway Publications, Eastbourne, 1995
BIBLE VERSION USED
The Amplified Bible
