Better name for signs-'n'-wonders Charismatics?

by Dan Phillips

I'll just wedge this offhand, orphaned thought amid Bro Turk's ongoing series on Da Gifts. He bears no blame for any bad, of course.

I've lamented in the past that the labels on this issue are ill-distributed. The positive and Bibley term "Charismaticism" gets tacked onto a movement that tries to cheapen the Biblical phenomena for the purpose of "dolling up" modern counterfeits. Meanwhile, the contrary position, which features robust affirmation of the sufficiency of God's living and dynamic Word, has to wear the rags of the negative term "Cessationism."

I've wished there were better terms for both. As Phil Johnson has frequently and convincingly argued, "Continuationists" are nothing of the sort. Their redefinition of some of the charismata hardly qualifies them to bear that sparkling term. What would be a more Biblical term?

And so, I was thinking....

One "continuationist" argument goes: God did signs and wonders to establish the Gospel. He needs to do the same today. If we deny that (the argument goes), we have a dead God, a God-in-a-book. We're Deists.

This is such a dear and beloved argument to some. It might be nice to know if God concurs with such confident assertions, and the line of reasoning behind it.

I don't think so.

Consider Exodus 10:2 — "and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you [plural] may know that I am the LORD."

This teaches us much. For one, miracles were to be transmitted verbally. God's performance of miracles are not a commitment to nightly shows, à la Las Vegas. What's more, this verbal transmission of God's past miracles was sufficient to produce knowledge of Yahweh, forming the basis for a relationship with Yahweh. This theme is sounded in many other verses and passages, such as the flow of thought in Deuteronomy 6:4ff.

By stark contrast, recall the events of Exodus 17. The Israelites in the wilderness thought God too removed, too uninvolved. He hadn't done a miracle lately.

Well, no, wait, that isn't true. He had! Just in the preceding chapter, Yahweh had brought quails and manna.

Okay, fine; but that was then. This is today. They don't want a dead, historical God, who used to do things. We don't want to be Deists. What has He done for us today? Because we're thirsty and fearful and angry and doubting and discontented and angry and disbelieving today. Forget what He said back in chapter ten about keeping faith alive by feeding on God's past acts of faithfulness. That isn't enough! A memory of God isn't enough!

Is God pleased with this spirit? Does He say, "I'm so delighted that My people aren't content with book-religion and 'trust and obey'! It so honors Me that they seek a continual flow of signs and wonders from Me"?

Not so much. Hear what Moses, the servant of Yahweh says: "And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah [Testing and Quarreling], because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the LORD by saying, 'Is the LORD among us or not?'" (Exodus 17:7).

The people are faulted for not trusting God, not taking Him at His word, in the face of a difficulty. A new challenge comes, the past is forgotten, the Word is forgotten, and all bets are off. The whiners demand a sign, a miracle, to prove God's presence. This demand clearly displeases Yahweh. So clearly He expected them to remember His past deeds and His word, and trust Him on that basis — not demand a fresh "proof."

Nor is this passage isolated and dropped in the flow of revelation. God Himself later holds up this very incident as a warning. He speaks — not of their godly, miracle-loving faith, but — of their hard-hearted unbelief (Psalm 95:7-11). He warns successive generations of Israelites not to follow the example of the people at Massah / Meribah.

So important was the point, that God renewed this very warning centuries later, after the advent of the Spirit and the inauguration of the New Covenant. He moved the writer of Hebrews to apply the warning to believers under the New Covenant as well (Hebrews 3:7-12). It is a lengthy and pointed quotation, rehearsal, and urgent application of this very warning: don't be like them!

The message is the same in all these passages: take the Word of God to heart. Learn! Rehearse! Remember! Don't forget (cf. Deuteronomy 8 passim)!

It is the polar opposite of the rootless, discontented, antsy, restless, roving-eyed attitude that constantly demands more, more, more and other, other, other.

So, I'm wondering. To my mind, "Charismatic" is too positive of a term for this sort of person, the person. It doesn't fit the poor soul who could never content himself with a ministry of the Word, without zings and ka-zams, without fakery and special effects. It doesn't describe the sort of person who runs about to this and that reported outburst of signs and wonders and prophecies, rather than staying planted under the steady ministry of the Word.

It isn't an apt label for the sort of person who's disinterested in our discussions here of the Cross, atonement, gospel, ministry, church, grace, the Word, Christian living, or a thousand other Biblical truths — but who always pops up to repeat long-discredited arguments used to keep the movement on life-support.

Would "Massaites" be a better name?

Or "Meribites"?

Maybe better, but it probably wouldn't work. Not in a generation of professed Christians who are stumped by "here I raise mine Ebenezer."

Sad upon sad.

(And we still have to come up with something better than "Cessationism"!)

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