Lament of the pathetic preacher — and what we all must learn from it

by Dan Phillips

What mediocre preacher said this?

It is a long time since I preached a sermon that I was satisfied with. I scarcely recollect ever having done so.

If you didn't suspect a trick-question, you might speculate, "You, DJP?" — a fair and appropriate guess. But no, the mediocre preacher was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in a sermon titled "Good Earnests of Great Success," preached in 1868 (thanks to Dave Harvey, whose post brought this to my attention).

Spurgeon goes on:

You do not know, for you cannot hear my groanings when I go home, Sunday after Sunday, and wish that I could learn to preach somehow or other; wish that I could discover the way to touch your hearts and your consciences, for I seem to myself to be just like the fire when it wants stirring; the coals have got black when I want them to flame forth.

If I could but say in the pulpit what I feel in my study, or if I could but get out of

my mouth what I have tried to get into my own soul, then I should preach indeed, and move your souls, I think. Yet perhaps God will use our weakness, and we may use it with ourselves, to stir us up to greater strength. You know the difference between slow motion and rapidity. If there were a cannon ball rolled slowly down these aisles, it might not hurt anybody; it might be very large, very huge, but it might be so rolled along that you might not rise from your seats in fear. But if somebody would give me a rifle, and ever so small a ball, I reckon that if the ball flew along the Tabernacle, some of you might find it very difficult to stand in its way. It is the force that does the thing. 

So, it is not the great man who is loaded with learning that will achieve work for God; it is the man, who, however small his ability, is filled with force and fire, and who rushes forward in the energy which heaven has given him, that will accomplish the work—the man who has the most intense spiritual life, who has real vitality at its highest point of tension, and living, while he lives, with all the force of his nature for the glory of God. Put these three or four things together, and I think you have the means of prosperity. [Paragraph breaks added]

Were I interviewed on truths that loom larger and larger over the decades, particularly regarding preaching, I know what would come near the top. It is this: the centrality and native impotence of preaching.

No reader of Pyromaniacs will need convincing of the former. It is the "preacher" who brings the word that saving faith requires (Romans 10:14, 17), and through the folly of what we preach that God saves sinners (1 Corinthians 1:21). Our paramount and awesome imperative, as pastors, is to "Preach the Word" regardless of opposition (2 Timothy 4:2, with context).

How, then, can I speak of the impotence of preaching?

My readiest answer is "From experience!" But let me back up. As a young Christian man and a beginning preacher, so high was my estimate of the Word of God that I virtually saw it as a magic book. Here's what I mean: Hebrews 4:12 was a central verse, with its declaration that "The word of God is living and effective and sharp beyond any two-edged sword," piercing where nothing else can reach. There it is. That book is full of divine power.

I still utterly believe that, more than ever. But the way I rather expected it to work was virtually ex opere operato. That is, you preach the Word, and wonderful things happen. Every time. Kazingo. Just by doing it. Because the Word is so inherently powerful.

As with all error, there is truth in all of that. Something does happen. Both preacher and hearer now stand under the testimony of God. It counts. Whether we repent or reject, whether we mourn or mock, whatever our response, God has spoken. He is on record; and His speaking to us is on our record.

But what was not prominent enough in my thinking was the absolutely and constantly essential ministry of the Triune God, whether the hearers are saved or unsaved. The work of conversion, of blessing, of edification, completely and utterly depends on God attending, using, and applying His word with power (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:5; 2:13).

Consider this: Paul preached Christ. Lydia believed. Yay, there you have it, Hebrews 4:12! Yes indeed — but other ladies present did not believe. Uh-oh. Why not? Because "the Lord opened [Lydia's] heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul" (Acts 16:14b), and He did not do that for the others who heard the exact same preaching.

Was the fault Paul's? Had he done a better job, given a better altar-call, furnished a glossier Anxious Bench, could he have produced more responses? Well, maybe so; but he couldn't have opened more hearts.

This is the vital and indispensable element: the work of God behind, in, with, above, through, and often despite our preaching. It is the vital element, and it is the element we cannot control or produce by formula. We can only plead and beseech Heaven, that God would move His hand, and work to His glory.

Until and unless that happens, we are like Elijah on Mt. Carmel. By the very best of our preparation and passion, we can lay plenty of wood. And by our innumerable flaws and idiocies and patheticalities, we will surely drench the wood with abundant water.

But the fire?

That must come from Heaven, or it will not come at all.

This is a truth that Charles Spurgeon, probably the greatest preacher ever to use the English language, grasped and believed. John Stott (no slouch as a preacher) relates the story that Spurgeon, as he climbed the steps to his pulpit, regularly repeated over and over "I believe in the Holy Ghost, I believe in the Holy Ghost."

So must we, consciously and in great, pleading, abject dependence.

How? I'll close with a few specific exhortations:

1. The pastor himself must pray as he works on his sermon. I knew a preacher who would not prepare at all, because he felt that the Holy Spirit needed to give him the word on the spot. I wondered, "Couldn't the Holy Spirit have helped you on Monday, and Tuesday, as you worked on a message?" Of course He can, and does.
2. The pastor himself should pray for the work of God before, during, and after the delivery of the sermon. I confess I am still learning this...along with everything else worth learning.
3. But the congregation must also join in. Paul often pled for his converts' and readers' prayers for his ministry of the Word (cf. Colossians 4:3-4; 2 Thessalonians 3:1). So attend your church's midweek prayer meeting, and join your brothers and sisters in opening your mouth in prayers for conversions, for conviction, for instruction, for transformation through the ministry of the Gospel and Word. Then on Sunday, take time before the service starts to find your seat and begin praying for yourself and others, for your pastor, and for the effective ministry of the Word.

I stress this last, because my mistake as a pastor can fall to others in the congregation as well. You may feel you have a good and faithful pastor who preaches the Word. If so, praise God. And then perhaps you think that'll do 'er. He preaches, and presto! magic happens. If it doesn't, well then, the pastor must not be preaching well enough. He must not be working the formula. Cancel Pastor Appreciation Day/Month until he figures it out.

But no, think again. Do not imagine that even the very best preacher's sermon will accomplish any more than a snowball in the Sahara, apart from the hand of God on it. And that's where you are called to come in, and wrestle alongside  him in your prayers (Romans 15:30; 2 Corinthians 1:11).

Paul knew it, Spurgeon knew it. Let us know it as well.

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Walking in the Spirit: a pre-response

by Dan Phillips

I've more or less promised to write specifically on what it (actually) means to walk in/be led by the Spirit. Aaaand I've not done it. Aaaand I'm not doing it today.

But in the meanwhile, I just crammed two or three sermons about the Holy Spirit into one, which includes exposition of the Bible's teaching on His person and work, through both Old and New Testament, including His work in the Christian life.

The sermon and outline are here:

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Don't use "the Holy Spirit" as a rug

by Dan Phillips

Ironically though oft-noted, one of the most wretched crimes of Charismaticism is the shabby treatment they give to the Holy Spirit.

"I don't see how you can say that," a reader might respond. "No movement talks more about the Spirit than Charismatics and their spinoffs."

"Talks," yep. True enough. But what do they say about Him? That's the issue.

We understand that there is a great deal of mystery about the Holy Spirit, in Scripture. Assembling a true and coherent doctrine of the Spirit from the Word is a challenge for anyone. This is true, first, because of His name. He doesn't precisely have a personal name like "Jesus," or a title with a personal connotation like "Father." Given that the Greek and Hebrew texts don't provide capital letters, it isn't always easy to tell when the Hebrew or Greek words for "spirit" are referring to the Third Person, or whether they're referring to wind or breath or the human spirit.

A second factor contributing to the Spirit's mystery is that He is not the focus of the text. He may come to the fore of a narrative, but as Jesus Himself says, the focus of the Spirit is not the Spirit. The focus of the Spirit is Jesus. The Holy Spirit is not a failed master of ceremonies.

As it is with the Spirit, so it is with some of the gifts of the Spirit. Revelatory gifts were designed to have limited shelf-life. So there can be little wonder that to us who live long after their expiration-date, some of them are mysterious — "mysterious" as in "we have no idea what they were" (1 Cor. 12:8). As Chrysostom noted just three centuries after the apostles —

This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place. And why do they not happen now? Why look now, the cause too of the obscurity hath produced us again another question: namely, why did they then happen, and now do so no more?

[John Chrysostom, “Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians,” in Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. Hubert Kestell Cornish, John Medley, and Talbot B. Chambers, vol. 12, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1889), 168.]

What was true a scant 300+ years after the New Testament events is, to say the least, no less true 1900+ years afterward.

Faced with impenetrable obscurity, there are fundamentally two options: accept the obscurity, or make something up to "clarify" it. Enter the Charismatics. Like the government, they're "here to help."

Here is what I've observed for decades. Never content to stay within the lines Scripture draws, nor content to focus on what God has revealed (contra Deut. 29:29), Charismatics use these mysteries, these obscurities, to load in and thus canonize their own peculiarities and alien-conflagration inventions.

It works like this. Do you get flashes of insight that feel significant to you? But you don't want to call them that, do you? Put that way, they have little meaning beyond the personal. No, you feel the need to imbue them with some sort of holy, divine mantle. You feel they deserve more attention and authority. Well, lookie here: nobody knows what a "word of wisdom" or a "word of knowledge" was. So just call it one of them. Nobody can prove you wrong!

Or: Do you feel like barking like a dog? or giving up all bodily control and dignity? or acting like a drunk or a druggie? Do you find that normal behavior isn't drawing enough attention, or satisfying your itch, but you have some bizarre capacity to shake your head, or something? Well, lookie here: nobody's sure he knows everything the Holy Spirit does. Even saying "Holy Spirit" is mysterious. So just say He made it happen. This is some work of the Holy Spirit. Who can prove you wrong?

So you see, we end up with a kind of backwards exegesis which is just a subspecies of eisegesis. We start with a phenomenon we like, we're sure it's got to be in the Bible somewhere, so we just find what we see as a bit of rug loose enough for us to sweep it under. Given the mysteries associated with the Spirit and His gifts, that's an oft-used recourse. Find even the appearance of ambiguity, and Robert is our mother's brother.

After all, Scripture says He "leads," right? Well, maybe this is that. Scripture says we're to "walk in" the Spirit, right? Well, maybe this is that. Just fill those words with your content. That's the first step.

Next step: subtract the "maybe." Say it again with confidence instead of tenuousness.

And voila! Another Charismatic crowd-pleasing distraction is born.

How?

Because rather than revering the Holy Spirit as God, and cleaving as closely to the Word He inspired as they can in grateful, faithful contentment, they use "the Holy Spirit" as a sort of rug. They sweep all their unsightly made-up embarrassments of irresponsibility and indulgence and carnality under that phrase. Then it doesn't look so ugly anymore.

It's covered up, by a phrase you use as a rug: "the Holy Spirit."

NEXT WEEK (Lord willing): what it actually means to be led by the Spirit.

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Strange Fire Conference #3: Joni Eareckson Tada and R. C. Sproul

by Dan Phillips

First post
Second post
My overall summary report to CBC

The next session featured Joni Eareckson Tada. I expect you know her story: at age seventeen, Joni's dive into unexpectedly shallow water resulted in her becoming a quadriplegic for life. Her first book Joni, written in 1976, is a gut-wrenching read. Here faithful yet vulnerably candid style has remained her trademark. Joni's talks are chats rather than addresses; they are personal testimonies mixed with spontaneous singing of snatches of hymns. I find it impossible to listen to her without being moved, and without coming away thinking, "Yeah, I don't really have problems."

This was a very touching, personal session. Joni and MacArthur have known each other for a long time, and a lot of kidding has gone back and forth (she said that, when she decided to wear her wedding dress outside her chair, while other said she floated like an angel, Mac said she looked like a float). So she leaned on that friendship to call him up to the stage with her to sing an unrehearsed duet. It was very nice, and left few dry eyes.

Nor did Joni's occasionally tearful testimony concerning the path she's traveled. In early days, Charismatic friends kept wanting to command Joni's healing. Once, Joni was taken to a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting. They went hours early, to get front and center seating. However, Joni and the other folks in wheelchairs were hustled off to the side out of the way, where the spotlight never found them. Afterwards the ushers moved them out, a very quiet line of 35 souls, all untouched, unhealed, left to wonder why the Savior had in fact passed them by.

Joni shared the struggle she's had as her affliction has forced her to confront the corruption in her own heart. She has had cancer, she has severe chronic pain — just think about that for a moment — she has constant daily struggles. But in it, Joni has found a hope to hang on to that is very different than the focus of most prominent Charismatic leaders: Jesus, the Gospel, heaven. Joni shared that she and her husband Ken talk about pain being splashovers of Hell. Then what are splashovers of Heaven? Not happy days, they concluded, but finding Jesus in the splashovers of Hell.

In fact, one of the most poignant reflections Joni shared (in my words) was that a new, healthy body is not what she is most looking forward to about resurrection life. What she most looks forward to is the full healing of her heart, the final removal of its remaining corruptions and temptations. In other talks she has said that she plans to thank Jesus for her wheelchair, and for what He has taught her through it. It calls to mind Solzhenitsyn's "Bless you, prison, for being my life."

She noted that Jesus was never "about" healing; alluding to Mark 1, she noted that when healings threatened to take focus away from His preaching, He would move on.

As if Joni weren't dealing with enough pains and suffering, after the talk we were told that she'd had to leave right away because (as I understood it) she had some bleeding that they could not stop.

I spoke with friends on-site who were monitoring Twitter. They told me that, previous to Joni taking the stage, the carpers and critics were very active and strident. But when Joni spoke, they shut up. Ditto during talks by Justin Peters, who suffers from cerebral palsy.

The critics didn't (and don't) have much to say to folks like Joni and Justin. Lower back-pain, headaches, poor sense of smell? They're all over that. Sometimes they are, that is. Quadriplegia and cerebral palsy? Not so much. Off to the side of the stage, please.

This is "continuationism" in a nutshell, isn't it? One hundred years of desperately trying to prop up their position by argument, redefinition, and distraction — but in all the whole world not one faith healer commanding one Joni Eareckson Tada to "rise and walk," to any good effect. Kathryn Kuhlman's ushers bear mute testimony to the fact that they expect no such thing to happen. Why not? Because that gift, the ability to heal on command, has not in fact continued. Tens of thousands of smart phones have failed to capture one such occurrence, though they could have captured many in the days of Jesus and the apostles (cf. Mark 6:56). The very fact that they are forced to make verbal arguments for continuationism — rather than pointing to 1900 years of Joni's and Justin's hopping up out of their wheelchairs — is potent proof that their position is bankrupt, and that in their hearts they know it.

Then John MacArthur made a remark in passing that stuck with me. He pointed that in the whole sweep of Biblical history, there were not that many healings. This is particularly true in the Old Testament, where the miracles usually "ended up with a lot of people dead. Once, the whole world." I'd never seen it that way, but of course he's right. Another point of discontinuity between the genuine and the imitation — Charismatic leader Benny Hinn and his "Holy Ghost machine gun" to the contrary notwithstanding.

The next session was a video from R. C. Sproul, who was prevented from coming by ill health. Sproul briefly traced the history of the Pentecostal movement. It was an early-20th-century invention that had no traction into the mainstream until the middle of that century, after which it spread to the Roman Catholic church and elsewhere indiscriminately.

Sproul then made the point that the Spirit's coming in Pentecost has to be set in the context of the history of redemption. It isn't a "and then that happened" event. Sproul set up by contrast with Moses wishing that all the Lord's people could have the Spirit (Num. 11:29). What had been a wish on Moses' lips becomes a prophecy in Joel 2, and then a reality in Acts 2.

What we see in Acts is the Spirit coming to four people-groups: first the Jews in Jerusalem (Acts 2), then the half-Jew Samaritans (Acts 8), then the Gentile proselytes in Acts 11, and then the full-on Gentile converts in Acs 19. Each group receives its own reenactment of Pentecost, presided over by apostles, signifying their full reception of the Spirit. Unlike the false teaching of Pentecostals, in each case, every believer present received the Spirit.

I have often noted (and argued at some length in my unpublished book on the Holy Spirit) that trying to re-do this period in order to receive the Spirit is like trying to build a manger and gather some shepherds and angels to receive Christ. The manger is how Christ came into the world, and the events in Acts are how the Spirit formed the church. It isn't intended that we reproduce the historical events.

And so Sproul's argument was that the problem with Pentecostals is that they make too little of Pentecost, not too much; and that their understanding of it differs from the apostles'.

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Strange Fire Conference #2: Session 1, John MacArthur

by Dan Phillips

Introduction. My intention in beginning these posts on sessions at the Strange Fire conference held last week at Grace Community Church will not be to reproduce everything that was said or done. You can consult such stalwarts who were there as Mike Riccardi, and eventually access the sessions themselves. I'll present highlights, impressions, conclusions that stood out to me.

Beyond this note, I won't comment on the singing that introduced each session, or special musical performances by GCC's soloists or the Master's Chorale — all of which were wonderful (particularly the latter).

John MacArthur fittingly welcomed us all, sharing that the Charismatic movement has been a concern of his since the first days of his ministry. He saw it as a threat, and wrote books on the subject in the late 1970s, the early 90s, and this month. This is the first conference he has ever held on the subject.

MacArthur likened Charismaticism to spiritual AIDS, which lowers a body's resistance and leaves a sufferer open to death by any of a hundred opportunistic infections. Some leaders in the movement are false teachers and know it; others are deluded unawares. Charismaticism as a whole is characterized by a lack of spiritual discernment, which God calls pastors to exercise in protecting the flock — yet many leaders are being remiss in fulfilling their calling when it comes to the Charismatic fad. Its false teaching has thrived in this vacuum. The conference was intended to help supply that lack.

MacArthur expounded Leviticus 10, whose narrative supplied the name of the conference. After Aaron's accepted (and authorized) worship, his sons sprang up to offer fire that was neither. God's fire, which had descended to consume Aaron's offering and leave the worshipers alive (Lev. 9:22-24), now descended with the opposite effect (10:2). God thus put Himself on record: He was to be treated as holy (10:3), which means approaching Him according to His word, not according to the creative notions of even the most prominent, privileged and respected.

To stress this, Mac twice said: "Most serious crimes against God occur in corrupt worship."

False representations of Yahweh, as we see in Exodus 32, are disastrous, and are a kind of idolatry. Think of the judgment and peril that disastrous experiment (and, I might add, complete failure in leadership) brought on Israel.

Good intentions has nothing to do with it; believing obedience to the Word has everything to do with it. This is where Charismaticism, as to its distinctives, has wholly failed. MacArthur made the same point we've often made here: Charismaticism as to its distinctives has made NO contribution to true worship, Biblical clarity, or sound doctrine. Biblically-faithful Christian people had already had all that for centuries. Charismaticism as to its distinctives has brought only chaos, confusion, misrepresentation, false doctrine, and delusion.

Are people saved within the Charismatic movement? Yes; but when they are, it is because of the gospel, which was not invented by that movement. God has always protected His gospel and raised up those who proclaim it, and He does so now. Some within Charismaticism also love and preach the Gospel, yet are heterodox (not heretical) when it comes to the Spirit.

However, many of the most prominent, influential, adored and spotlighted leaders in the movement are heretical and do not know God. For this reason, no movement has done more damage to the church. There may be 14 million Mormons, but there are 500 million Charismatics. In too many cases, the movement has proved to be a Trojan horse for destructive delusion at best, and damning error at worst. Welcomed with open arms by evangelical trend-surfers and accommodaters, the troops pour out, take over, and erect an idol in the City of God. They offer the world what it already wants with a sprinkling of "Spirit"-dust. The world pours into the professing church unconverted, and the damage is done.

Here MacArthur made a point I found arresting. He alluded to this passage from Hebrews:

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:28–31)

MacArthur noted that many groups of Christians have assembled to oppose the trampling underfoot of the Son of God by defending sound Biblical Christology, the first item mentioned by the writer. I could add that organizations like T4G and TGC and many others at least formally oppose the denigration of the Gospel and the blood of the covenant (the second item), by defending the Biblical Gospel.

But where, MacArthur poignantly asks, are the organizations and conferences held to respond to the outrageous treatment of the "Spirit of grace," the Holy Spirit, the third object? The verb that Apollos the writer of Hebrews uses is ἐνυβρίσας, which means to insult the Spirit, to treat Him with outrageous contempt. Is that not what vast swathes of Charismaticism do? Attributing to Him their atrocious and shameful behavior — punching and hitting people, manipulating people by falsely-claimed superpowers, bilking people, barking like dogs, jerking and rolling about like demoniac pagans, laughing like the insane, babbling incoherently, speaking words that range from trivia to heresy — is that not outrageous insult? Is it not blasphemy? Yet what are the organizations and conferences that have rallied to respond to this as robustly as others have to heresy and deception regarding Christ and the Gospel?

To add even great sobriety to this observation, we note that the oft-quoted words of vv. 30-31 relate to how seriously God takes such atrocities. He doesn't shrug these things off as adiaphora. He regards it as of the very gravest importance.

Do his most public, celebrated, rock-star Christian leaders?

To ask, is to answer, sadly.

Instead, what one hears (me talking now, not MacArthur) is wails and squeals about MacArthur talking about these abuses — not about the abuses themselves. It reminds me of how shocked (shocked!) Senatrix Barbara Boxer was for Senator Rick Santorum to describe partial-birth abortion on the floor of the Senate. The procedure itself didn't bother her a bit, she adores it as a sacred right. But describing it? Offensive! Unheard-of!

So here, invariably the dramatists who flutter and swoon in their horror over MacArthur's speaking out are not themselves known for their frequent and bold stances against the withering destructive errors of Charismaticism; but they do want to grab the spotlight as standing among the crowd of MacArthur's detractors. "Of course, some of that is bad," is the thought; "but this divisive conference is really, really bad!" Oh, yes? Color me unpersuaded.

Another sharp point Mac made was to point to the Spirit's ministry in Romans 8 — forming the character of Christ in us — and then point to the life of Christ Himself. MacArthur observed that the Holy Spirit was Jesus' constant companion, from conception to crucifixion. It is Jesus to whom the Holy Spirit strives to conform us. The Holy Spirit brings us to Jesus.

With that in mind, MacArthur asks: "When did Jesus ever bark like a dog? When did Jesus ever laugh uncontrollably for hours on end for no reason? When did Jesus ever moo, fall down and lose control, roll around and foam and quiver, or babble incoherently?"

Again, to ask is to answer.

MacArthur concluded that he'll start taking the movement as a whole more seriously when the most prominent leaders as a whole start looking more like Christ.

It was a powerful start to the conference, and set the stage well.

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Do we really have to go over this again?

by Frank Turk

I was going to write an open letter to the Holy Spirit this week, but I couldn't find a way to make it both poignant and non-blasphemous.  Rather, here's what you ought to read today:

Voices in our heads

What's necessary for the Church?

Remember Todd Bentley? (Yes: He's back)

Signs and Wonders

A More Excellent Way

The PDF of my exchange with Dan Edelen, as linked by Monergism.com

Fantastic.  Tell Dr. Michael Brown we said Hi.

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"Challenges to the Gospel" and the Assemblies of God

by Dan Phillips

Rather than yet another "Last Week On Pyro" spot, I'll just refer you here, which in turn refers you everywhere else you need, and then I'll assume you know All That.

So on the original cover from the Assemblies of God, we see a listing of Islam, atheism, pluralism, annihilationism, Buddhism, Calvinism, and Eternal Security as "challenges to the Gospel."

Notice anything that all those ideologies and concepts share in common? Here 'tis: from the perspective of the AoG, all of those are "them-problems." As even the apology points out, the AoG has formal statements that deal with many of these issues, with the exception of Limited Atonement.

Does that mean that the editors see the Assemblies of God as itself facing no real, internal "challenges" to the Gospel? As I pointed out, the AoG has played a role in bringing us Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Paul and Jan Crouch, and David (Paul) Yonggi Cho. Should not some of the doctrines promoted by any or all of these people have warranted a sign on the post, and a devoted article?


It is true that the AoG produced a position-paper titled "The Believer and Positive Confession." But that was in 1980. Has this false teaching gone away? Is it still a virulent presence among charismatics? Is it a challenge to the Gospel? Does it really come nowhere near an Assemblies of God church? The "Calvinist's" affirmation of the Biblical doctrine of God as a mighty and competent Savior is a challenge, but this isn't? Wouldn't it have made a good "us"-warning?

Beyond that, I do have a major concern of my own, an AoG position that I see as a challenge to the Gospel. But it is a fundamental AoG position, and for the AoG to recognize and address it would mean a major reformation to the denomination. That would be a wonderful thing, long-overdue to my mind; but I wouldn't expect it in a mere article in a denominational magazine.

It's an odd thing, too. Though this is a major position of the AoG, I find that many advocates are less than candid or honest about it. I have in the past simply directly quoted or paraphrased their own words, to be greeted by explosive reactions and denials from AoG promoters or devotees. It is as if they are profoundly embarrassed to the point of denial, yet not enough so actually to change as needed.

Here is the statement of the position, quoted in my probably-never-to-be-published book on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The quotation comes from page 19 of the AoG booklet, Assemblies of God: Who We Are and What We Believe (Gospel Publishing House: 1987 [rev. ed.]):

...the baptism in the Holy Spirit...is a special infusion of God’s power to better enable [sic] the believer...to live the full, faithful life God has promised and expects. The Scriptures... teach that every believer should earnestly seek and expect this Baptism [sic]. The first physical evidence is speaking in an unknown language (Acts 1:5; 2:4, 39; 5:32; 19:1-7).

The booklet goes on to say, “This Baptism [sic] leads to a deeper reverence for God, a growing sensitivity in worship, and an intensified dedication to Christ’s work. It also opens the door for special ministering gifts of the Spirit (Acts 4:31-33; 1 Cor. 12; 13; and 14).”

Has the AoG renounced this booklet formally? Not to my knowledge. They do however seem to express the position just a bit more coyly. Thus:

All believers are entitled to and should ardently expect and earnestly seek the promise of the Father, the baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire, according to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the normal experience of all in the early Christian Church. With it comes the enduement of power for life and service, the bestowment of the gifts and their uses in the work of the ministry. ...This experience is distinct from and subsequent to the experience of the new birth. ...With the baptism in the Holy Spirit come such experiences as: an overflowing fullness of the Spirit, ...a deepened reverence for God...an intensified consecration to God and dedication to His work...and a more active love for Christ, for His Word and for the lost

Well now, I think we can all agree that those are wonderful Christian graces, can't we?  In fact, they're not just wonderful, they're essential, wouldn't you agree?

So when I turn from the AoG's self-admitted fundamental teaching, and to the Word of God, what do I read?

"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32)

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Eph. 1:3)

"...you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority" (Col. 2:10)

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence" (2 Pet. 1:3)

I could go on and on, but the contrast is stark. The AoG tells me that I, a born-again Gospel-believing Christian, lack essential equipment. I do not have all I need in Jesus Christ and through the Gospel. I am not fully equipped and fully empowered for service. The Father has not graciously given me all things that I need for life and godliness when He gave me Christ, I have not been blessed with every spiritual blessing (see the following verses), I have not been filled full in Christ, and I have not been granted all things essential for life and godliness. I am doomed to limp by, inadequately equipped, until I am upgraded to Christian 2.0.

Indeed, I am still split off. The AoG's God evidently does not see all of humanity in two races (in Adam and in Christ, Rom. 5:12-21); He sees it in three — in Adam, in-Christ-but-still-not-really-all-there, and in-Christ-and-fully-equipped. While the genius of NT Christianity is that it puts all Christians on absolutely equal standing spiritually before God, the AoG subdivides Christian from Christian in an essential way. John the Baptist said Messiah would baptize all His followers in the Spirit (Mk. 1:8), the AoG says He did not. Paul says that everyone who is in the body of Christ got there through baptism with the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13); the AoG said they did not. Paul says there are only two defining, categorical relations to the Spirit (Rom. 8:9), the AoG says there are three.

And by the way, it is difficult not just to ponder a bit further. Since engaging in the post-1906 fake version of "tongues" is essential as a proof of this second (but essential) experience, we can say that everyone who has not done so has not been Spirit-baptized.

According to the AoG, then, every Christian after the apostles and prior to 1906 operated at less than full capacity. Somehow Augustine, Athanasius, Calvin, Luther, Knox, Owen, Machen, Warfield, Spurgeon and all the rest did what they did without that special enabling they need to really-really love God and serve Him. And given that, it is difficult not to ask what the entire pentecostal movement has produced since 1906 that shows how much better their experience equips them to serve God, over against Calvin and Whitefield and the rest, who had just Christ and just the Gospel and just the Spirit as given through the Gospel?

So we all know that it was a violent abuse of Gal. 3:26-28 to try to make it a feminist motto, authorizing our violation of other Scriptures in suggesting that women can be pastors. But doesn't it apply here? And doesn't Col. 3:11? Mightn't we, by application, legitimately add to the list of excluded divisions "haves and have-nots," or "regulars and premiums," or "normal and super-sized"?

Believe me, all this is only scratching the surface.

So how could we even suggest that this should be seen as a challenge to the Gospel? In that the gift of the Spirit is a fruit of Christ's work on the Cross (Jn. 16:7; Acts 2:33). It is an essential spiritual blessing of the Gospel. If I partake in the Gospel, I partake in all its blessings — including the full essential enabling ministry of the Spirit. There are not three categories in the NT: have-nots, have-Christ-but-that's-not-enough, and have-Christ-plus-high-octane-enabling.

I can believe that these implications are not intentional, and I know these conclusions will be denied, but I would just remind the reader that simply issuing a denial is of little objective evidentiary value. You just can't get around it. To the AoG, if you've trusted Christ and believed the Gospel, that's a great thing, it's a wonderful thing, it's an all-important thing...but it isn't everything you need.

Isn't that a challenge to the Gospel?

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"What Is Written"

by Phil Johnson



o I was in Minneapolis Saturday for Todd Friel's Wretched Psalm 119 Conference, and David Wheaton broadcast his weekly radio program, "The Christian Worldview," live from the conference venue. David graciously featured an interview with me in one of the segments, and at one point he asked me to give a thumbnail sketch of what I would be speaking on later in the day. The theme of this year's Psalm 119 Conferences is the Holy Spirit, and one of my messages dealt with the question of how the Holy Spirit communicates truth to believers. Should we expect Him to reveal fresh prophecies through intuitive impulses, voices in our heads, and other means of private revelation?

I said no, nothing in Scripture instructs us to seek that kind of guidance. Instead, we are commanded to order our lives by the Scriptures (Deuteronomy 5:32; Joshua 1:7-8; Psalm 1:2-3; 1 John 2:5-6; etc.). The Holy Spirit's ministry is to enlighten our understanding of the Word (1 John 2:20, 27; Ephesians 1:17-18; 1 Corinthians 2:12-14; Psalm 119:18) and motivate our obedience (Ezekiel 36:27), so that the Word of God (not some mystical extrabiblical revelation) is "a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Psalm 119:105).

That's more or less what I said in answer to David Wheaton's question about how the Holy Spirit guides us.

Less than 15 minutes later, my phone dinged, letting me know I had received a fresh e-mail. Here's what the message said:

I was just listening to an interview with you on local Christian radio. It seems you have elevated that which is written above the mystery of Christ hidden in us. Perhaps I have misunderstood. I hope so. There was nothing "written" for the common man until when? The 16th century? Maybe sooner...Even so, literacy was widespread. But, here we are, the seed has not been obliterated. I submit that you could consider the inner work of the Spirit...that is a mystery, indeed. Just as surely as the union of sperm and egg produces life, so the Spirit produces new life, and that eternal. And we have no dispute there. Lean not into your own understanding...let the Spirit have His work...by Faith. After all, God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must do so in spirit and in truth.

Yikes.

My reply:

God himself elevates "that which is written" to the position of highest authority, and He has expressly instructed us "not to go beyond what is written" (1 Corinthians 4:6). Scripture is the only truth we have that is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). And the truth of Scripture is sufficient for all our spiritual needs (v. 17).

So if someone heard my abbreviated answer to David Wheaton and thought I was saying the Scriptures are more authoritative and more reliable than any mysterious "inner work of the Spirit" that involves extra-biblical "truth" or inspired intuition, then emphatically: Yes, you heard me correctly.

Like many charismatics, my interlocutor seems to imagine that the principle of sola Scriptura is hostile to a robust understanding of the Holy Spirit's work in the daily lives of Christians today.

That idea is perhaps the single most deadly error in the vast menagerie of problems associated with the charismatic movement.

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The Holy Spirit is not a failed Ed McMahon

by Dan Phillips

Re-post from 12/14/2006, very slightly edited.

Most of our readers are old enough to remember Ed McMahon, genial MC for The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson. His job was to announce the show, and introduce Johnny Carson. Then he sat out there, played straight man to Johnny, laughed at his jokes, made Carson look good.

Through the years, Carson had various guest hosts including, I think, Seinfeld, Leno, Letterman, and Brenner. Never, as far as I know, Ed McMahon.

(Here's a funny thing: I'll bet scores of folks are already offended at this post, without even knowing for certain where I'm going with it.)

My allusion to McMahon has one point, and one only: McMahon's job was go make another person look good, to draw attention to him. It was to produce anticipation, and then, with his famous "Heeeeere's Johnny!", to bring on the star of the show.

If the camera had remained on McMahon, if the spotlight had been trained on him, immediately we'd have known something was very wrong. Ed wasn't the focus. Nor have I ever heard that McMahon resented his role. In fact, when he wrote a book, it was titled Here's Johnny!, not Hey, Look at Me! McMahon's job was defined, he embraced it, and he did it well.

So, where am I going with this? Am I suggesting that the Holy Spirit, then, is like Ed McMahon? In virtually no way. The august Person of God the Holy Spirit produced Scripture (2 Peter 1:21), was involved in Creation (Genesis 1:2), empowered Jesus' ministry (Luke 4:14), is the mode of believers' immersion into Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13), seals us until the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30), and a great deal more. He is God.

But there is one point of analogy, and one only: the delight and joy of the Holy Spirit is not to train attention upon Himself. The Holy Spirit's great love, fascination, and focus, is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Before the Incarnation, the Spirit moved in the prophets. And of what did He speak through them? Among other things, He spoke of the sufferings of Christ, and of His glories to follow (1 Peter 1:11).

The Holy Spirit performed the miracle by which the virgin, Mary, became mother to the human nature of the Messiah (Matthew 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35). He appeared at Jesus' baptism, not to flutter in mid-air while until everyone noticed and admired Him, but to rest on Christ, to mark Him out as Yahweh's anointed (Matthew 3:16; cf. Luke 4:18).

And so the power of the Spirit continued in the ministry of Jesus, to guide Him in what He did (Matthew 4:1), and to bring glory and honor to Jesus, marking Him as God's Son (Matthew 12:28; Acts 10:38). This He did preeminently in Jesus' resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4).

And what would the Spirit do after Christ's resurrection and ascension? More of the same. "He will glorify me," Jesus says of the Spirit, "for he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:14). It is worth repetition: "He will glorify me." In fact, the Greek is a bit more emphatic: "That one, Me will He glorify." The Spirit will come to bring glory, and it is to Jesus that He will bring this glory.

Imagine that. God though He is, personal though He is, the Spirit's aim is not to glorify Himself. It is to glorify Jesus. And how does the Holy Spirit do that? By imparting inerrant revelation to the apostles, revelation which we have today in the Bible alone. He did this by granting them inerrant memory of Jesus' words (John 14:26), by bearing witness to them about Jesus (John 15:26), by convicting the world of truths related in each case to Jesus (John 16:8-11), and by continuing to tell them the "many things" that Jesus still had to say to them (John 16:12-13). Jesus emphasizes this last point, assuring the apostles that the Spirit would not speak aph' heautou, from Himself, but rather from Jesus.

When the Holy Spirit wrote a book, what was it about? At least one has to confess that the Holy Spirit's recurrent theme, strain, melody, was the person and work of Christ (Luke 24:25-27, 44-46; Acts 3:18; 10:43; 24:14; 26:22-23). If I may put it this way, you could almost re-title the New Testament "Here's Jesus."

Does it not follow, then, that the Spirit's presence and prevalence will show the impress of His personality, His grand interest?

So how do you know when the Spirit is present and prevalent in a man? By how the man relates to Jesus. He confesses Jesus as Lord (1 Corinthians 12:13). He has the character of Jesus (Galatians 5:22-23). He moves men to confess the incarnation of Jesus (1 John 4:2). He makes the presence and person of Christ real.

A man full of the Holy Spirit will be a great lover of Jesus, whom the Spirit loves, and of that great work of the Spirit, the Scriptures. That is, he will love Jesus, and he will love that Spirit-breathed witness to Christ, the written Word. He will passionately care about the truths of Christ, and of the Word. That will be the proof of the Spirit's rule in his heart.

So how can we evaluate a movement whose icon is a descending dove, who wishes thus to identify itself by a peculiar view of the Spirit and His works? What are we forced to conclude about a movement whose great concern is insisting on a few of what they mis-identify as the Spirit's gifts, after changing the definition and description He Himself had given in the Word?

What of men or women who wish to be distinguished from all other Christians by their view of the Spirit's work? People who do not tend to get much exercised when the person and work of Christ, and the Word of Christ, are misrepresented, attacked, slighted, smeared, rejected either outright or by implication—but who fly into action if anyone expresses skepticism about The Gifts{tm}? Who are known not for their robust defense of the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, nor of penal, substitutionary atonement, nor of the truth of by-grace-alone, forensic justification, nor of the imputed righteousness of Christ, nor of the exclusivity of Christ's claims and Gospel, nor of the objective nature of the Word's truth—but for the right to label an activity "prophecy" or "tongues," despite the fact that it does not approach the Spirit-breathed, Biblical definition?

As a pastor I again and again observed folks who could never be content in a church that seeks to be Christ-centered, and to preach the Word, if it doesn't engage in certain peripheral activities. They can't "feel the Spirit" without certain worship-styles, entertainments, play-times. For them, "feeling the Spirit"—not preaching Christ—is the be-all and end-all.

More to the point, what would the Spirit of God make of such a movement? Does it bear His impress, His mark? In Scripture, He is everywhere present and active, but He is always pointing to Christ, to the Father, to the work and words of God. Consider this: in contrast to the Father and the Son, no Scripture (that I can find) presents the Spirit as prayed to nor directly addressed, nor does any verse command believers to do so. I can't say that I'm sure I know what that means, but it means something.

To make another imperfect analogy, it is as if the Spirit's delight is to grab hold of the spotlight, and then to bring all attention to the Star of the show, Jesus Christ. But if we turn to the spotlight and focus on it, and on the one who mans it, can we think that His intent is honored?

What would be the mark of a genuine movement of the Spirit? Would it not be love for Christ, and for His Word, with resultant godliness and holiness?

... and not fascination with the Spirit?

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Sweeping up after the Poythress articles

by Dan Phillips

Since JT "still thinks" Poythress' post is worth recommending, and since Frank (and I) still think it's still hollow, and since I had the joyous chaos of a lot of welcome house guests and much happy busy-ness, I'll run my summary thoughts (which links to the previous three posts) by you once again. Because you really need to remember the startlingly scant garb adorning this particular potentate (I refer to the argument, not the arguer), I remind you of this from August, 2010.

Assuming the argument* of the three Poythress articles (starting here), let's look at two questions.

First: if they aren't spiritual gifts,
what are they?

There is no Scriptural authority for calling these activities "spiritual gifts," in the 1 Corinthians 12 sense. Anyone with a robust Biblical grasp of the sufficiency of Scripture should find that fact sobering, even pivotal.

But if you can't call these hunches, strong impressions, vivid dreams and all "spiritual gifts," then what do you call them?

I have a bold proposal: what if we call them hunches, strong impressions, vivid dreams?


The chattery negative reaction many would fling back in response is very telling. You'll note I've never argued that hunches, strong impressions, and vivid dreams are without any significance. I just argue that they have no divine authority, and often signify nothing of any import.

And there's the rub, for all sorts of Christianoids. To them, all this Bibley stuff is too cerebral and "out-there." They crave the vivid immediacy of feelings and experiences. More than that, they insist on attaching some sort of spiritual significance or divine authority to their vibrations and emanations. More than that, they like being able to imagine that they have an individual hotline to God, through which He whispers sweet nothings into their ears, and theirs alone.

And it's a nice plus not to have to make an actual rational, Biblical case for their opinions.  "The Lord told me" or "I felt the Lord move my heart to" or "I was praying, and I just really felt led" trumps anything short of a specific Biblical prohibition... and sometimes, even that.

But if we (novel thought!) begin insisting that everything we do in God's name be done only with express Biblical warrant, all that must change. Everyone will be absolutely free to say, "I just feel," or "I have a hunch" — but our feelings and hunches will have to stand or fall by their own merits. We'll have to make a reasoned case, or confess our inability to do so. If we have earned a reputation as Biblically-savvy, mature souls with sound judgment, they'll have some weight. If we're silly, shallow, emotional tumbleweeds, well, not so much.

As I said, if some sharp cookie like my wife or many of my friends says they have an uneasy feeling about something, I take it seriously. I consider it very possible that a dozen alarm-bells are going off at a subliminal level in their sharp, perceptive, Biblically-informed minds. I see the moving of their thoughts as being under the providential control of God (cf. Proverbs 21:1), and I'll factor it in to any decision-making.

But unless it's attached to some Bible verses, I'll not assign any Divine authority to it.

Second: what do we do about them?

My three thoughts will be fairly blunt and direct. (Readers gasp in astonishment.)

One: we need to bring our language under Biblical discipline. Don't call what isn't prophecy "prophecy." Don't say "the Lord told me" if you're not about to quote a Bible verse. Don't try to legitimatize silliness by forcing a Biblical label on it. Let a prophecy be the unique, enormous, stop-the-presses thing it was, and let a hunch be a hunch.

However, if you are a really-really "continuationist," then stop pussy-footing about. Get on with it, man! Have Crossway issue an ESV with lots and lots of blank pages in the end, so you can "continue" to ink in new Scripture. Just be sure to tell everyone that that's where you're coming from.

Two: we need to grow up. Repent of the paralyzing, navel-gazing, self-absorbed fascination with the murky world of sorta semi-gifts that impart sorta semi-revelation. Get into real revelation; get into Scripture.

You can take this to the bank: I have yet to meet the fake-gift-obsessed charismatic who is what he is because he learned and internalized all of Scripture, and just really needed something else to do.

We've got 66 books of pure, real, binding revelation. We don't know them like we should. We don't preach them like we should. We don't live them like we should.

So grow up, focus, and get with God's program.

Three: anyone claiming to speak for God apart from Scripture should be disciplined. The Bible is pretty fierce on the subject of speaking in God's name without authority, without authorization (Deuteronomy 18:20). Here's my reasoning: if in Israel false prophecy warranted the death penalty, should it not warrant excommunication in the Christian church?


We're going to have to cook, or get out of the kitchen. If we believe the Canon is closed and Scripture is sufficient, then we believe God is not speaking new words apart from Scripture. Anyone claiming to mediate such revelation is in serious error. If we won't get serious about that, we're not serious about Scripture's sufficiency.

There.

Happy? Great. Mad? Oh well. Sorry.

But you won't walk off saying "Hunh, wonder what Phillips really thinks."

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*That means, once again, the meta will assume that position, rather than debate it.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

UPDATE: Trogdor made a trenchant observation pairing two Justin Taylor posts, and probably making my point more briefly and effectively than I did. In fact, it may give me an idea for a Next!

Vern Poythress and the modern sorta-gifts (Part Three)

by Dan Phillips

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This is the conclusion of a three-part post, which starts here, continues here, and concludes... well, here. I'm mulling an afterword, but this is the main argument.

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So how does Poythress get from Scriptural sufficiency to (what I argue is) Scriptural insufficiency? The way most good men and women go off-course: by inches. Something like this (again, I urge you to read Poythress):

1. Biblically-described gifts/activities may be thought of as discursive and non-discursive
2. Prophecy, with its visions and heard-voices, is an example of a non-discursive activity
3. Modern "prophecy," with its feelings and leadings, is also non-discursive
4. Modern "prophecy" is therefore analogous to Biblically-described prophecy
5. It is a kind of the same activity, must be treated as a spiritual gift, and may bear the same name

But where is the direct Biblical warrant for basing anything significant on that inferred division? Do not Biblical prophecies include quotations from previous texts? (Hint: they do.) Where is the direct Biblical warrant for extracting the essential identifying characteristics of a gift, and dignifying the resultant activity with the name God gave the genuine gift? It is as if one were to discard the weiner and still insist that what was left was a "hot dog."

Where is the crying need to invent errant gifts? Remember, in the apostolic church, inerrant gifts were already joined by fallible gifts. It isn't as if all the gifts back then involved prophetic inerrancy and apostolic authority, and now we have to explain how we can do anything in our day, because Scripture doesn't countenance it.

To be specific, the Bible already names pastors and teachers, exhorters, helpers and leaders, without any suggestion that their activities were inerrant products of binding, divine revelation. What is the argument demanding the insufficiency of the revealed lists? Are we really incapable of either describing what Christians legitimately do by using revealed categories? Why do we need to invent new gifts, new versions of the gifts that did involve binding, inerrant divine revelation? Where is the direct Biblical warrant for such proliferation of gifts?

And if there is no direct Biblical warrant, where is the necessity?

This progression makes for a cautionary lesson. Let me illustrate:

Gradualistic reasoning. One of my finest memories is of the day my dear (then-future) wife and I shopped for wedding rings together. We were in the Redondo Beach area, going through the jewelry stores. Later there was dinner overlooking the ocean, and a sweet nice time by the crashing waves. Terrific day, terrific evening.

I'd never thought ring-shopping could be fun, but this really was. We were pretty money-poor, so we began by looking at plain gold bands, which cost $X. But those $X rings were in a case right next to other rings. It was impossible not to see them. Looking from the bands to the other rings we saw that, for just $X+10 more per ring, we could have this attractive design on them. Cool! But, wait, just another $X+15, and we could have this beautiful touch... and then, at $X+25, this... and then at $X+75, this.... Before long, we were financially miles and miles away from our starting-point.

Finally my intended said, "You know, would we rather spend all our money on nice rings now and have nothing for our honeymoon? Or get basic rings now, have a nice honeymoon, and then upgrade in ten years? After all, the rings won't make the marriage."

The problem with inching away from Scripture. Poythress' article is an example of just that kind of creeping gradualistic thinking. Poythress thinks that, if we're going to buy the $X+1 ring, we might as well go ahead and get the $X+1000 ring.

In effect, Poythress starts out with A: the apostolic gifts were revelatory, inerrant, binding; the Canon is closed and sufficient; such gifts are no longer in operation. Then he says, "From that explicit teaching of Scripture, it is only a short step to inference A, which is not explicitly Scriptural, but which sees that one might argue that there are different mutations of the same gift, starting off at near-identity, but soon ranging far afield. Once we grant A, it will become easier to step to A+1, then A+25 and A+95, further and further away from explicit Biblical teaching; at which point just another few leaps, and we end up here, at A=Ω. This all leads us to see that it's okay to call non-A 'A,' and obligatory to respect it equally with A."

Nice trick. Color me unconvinced.

Arguing that an inuitive hunch verbalized by a good Christian brother or sister is analogous to inerrant, binding, direct revelation from God to the extent that the latter may bear the name of the former, simply does not follow. A Frisbee may bear similarities to a pizza, but please don't try to serve it to me for dinner, with or without anchovies.

So in sum, I am tempted to refute Poythress' entire argument simply by saying "Yes, well, I don't think contemporary gifts are significantly analogous to apostolic gifts," and leave it at that.

Though Poythress' article is over 15,000 words long, this would actually be an adequate refutation, if not a very satisfying one.

How so? Read Poythress, and you will see that his entire case breaks down thus:

1. Scripture defines certain revelatory gifts.
2. I, Vern Poythress, think some modern activities are kind of like those gifts, though not the same.
3. "Kind of like" is close enough that we can call them by the same names, and are obliged to regard them as spiritual gifts.

See? So if one can say (as I do say) "I don't think it's valid to take that step; instead, I think we should let Scripture name what it names, and be both content with that and bound by that naming," then he's done.

Think of it in any other sphere. A flashlight is like a sun, no? Both give light in dark places. There you go. So, let's call a flashlight a "sun."

But no, we can't do that. A sun has defining features which set it apart from flashlights. There is a reason why we have two words, and don't trade them back and forth willy-nilly.

As I see it, this is just another good brother's goodhearted but mistaken attempt to "Clinton down" the real gifts, to spray-paint a false veneer of respectability to modern counterfeits so as to save them from embarrassment.

At some point, I think sober heads are going to have to wake up and ask themselves why they keep trying to do this, why they keep making excuses for goofy ol' Uncle Joe. Is it because we like the faux-gift practitioners? Well, I like them too, a lot. But is that a good motivation for playing loose with Scripture, bending it to accommodate our friends' errors? Does such a thing serve God well? Does it adorn the Scripture? For that matter, does it serve the uninstructed, the gullible... or the ensnared?

I think not.

Conclusion: case closed!

Now let's see who's been paying attention.

At this point you, Dear Readers, will divide generally into two main categories.

First category will be those persuaded by my argument, and unconvinced by Dr. Poythress. To many folks in that group, I will have at least sketched the outline of a withering, devastating critique of Poythress' position, and you basically agree with me. Case closed.

Second category would be comprised of those who still feel that Dr. Poythress is right. Perhaps you'd argue, as many do, that the Bible does not claim to give an exhaustive list of spiritual gifts. You see analogies between modern, more-intuitive phenomena (if orthodox) and Biblical apostolic, revelatory, inspired, binding gifts. You think it's valid, for that reason, to apply the same names to the modern activities.

Well then, my argument still must prevail.

How so?

You do not feel I have mounted a withering, devastating critique of Poythress' position. I understand that.

But does not my case contain many of the characteristics of a withering, devastating critique? Wouldn't honesty force you to admit that my argument is... hm, what's the word?... analogous to a withering, devastating critique of Poythress' position?

Surely.

Well then, if you think Poythress is right, then I demand that you apply his reasoning and call my argument a withering, devastating critique of Poythress' position. And I demand that it be worked into any theology of the gifts.

If he's right... then I'm right. Or analogous to being right. Which, since Dr. Poythress does not want to "get bogged down in disputes about terminology," amounts to the same thing.

There y'go.

Case closed.

Part One
Part Two

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Vern Poythress and the modern sorta-gifts (Part Two)

by Dan Phillips

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SORRY. Really, I am. I was afraid this would happen, which is why I built in some wiggle-words to Part One ("unless...should be...."). This post is too long, so I'm breaking it into two. Comments still closed, for the same reasons I explained previously, until the conclusion — which is already pretty much written, so don't fear. Much.

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In the first word, O Pyrophilus, we set out a sketchy view of the view of sorta-cessationist Vern Poythress, who tries very hard to achieve real respectability for the sorta-gifts that mesmerize not-really "continuationists" today and set them off from plain-ol' really-Sola-Scriptura Christians. I briefly summarized Poythress' position, and urged you to read Poythress.

Many folks, including the estimable Justin Taylor, are quite smitten with Poythress' argument. As you have surmised, I am not among that number. This puts me in an uncomfortable  position, because while I doubt I'm alone in my view, I have not found anyone else on whose shoulders I can stand (or behind whom I can hide). Neither Googling the intrawebs nor Logos-ing scores of academic journals turned up critical responses. Dissents to Poythress, if they exist, eluded me. This is disappointing, since (A) Poythress' argument has been influential enough to warrant a sound takedown, and (B) far better men than I could surely disassemble it like a Lego toy with unchanged pulse rate.

So I'm stuck giving my own evaluation, which, recalling the adage about pioneers, is a daunting prospect.

Too bad, too, because I think Poythress' article is easily deconstructed. Everything depends on two factors:

1. How desperate the reader is to invent a way to achieve respectability for "continuationism"/Charismaticism.
2. Whether the reader is willing to make a specific leap with Poythress.

The second depends on the first. Without that urge, there is no motivation to take the leap.

The leap is everything. There is a point early-on in the jaw-dropper movie The Sixth Sense (NOTE: I will delete spoilers, period), where everything depends on the viewer making a particular assumption. Make that assumption — which I did — and what follows becomes an amazing experience. Otherwise, it simply does not work.

Poythress' assumption is that we are warranted in calling things what they aren't. (In fact, he actually tries to argue that we are obliged to do so.) More specifically, Poythress assumes we have the right to (A) take revealed gift-name labels, (B) affix those labels to non-identical activities, then (C) demand that those non-identical activities [1] be accepted as legitimate, under the revealed gift-names, and [2] be worked into actual theologies. I could make a syllogism:

• A has something like (analogous to) characteristic 14
• ξ has something like (analogous to)  characteristic 14
• Therefore, ξ can be called "A"

It is as if I were to take a Maine Coon cat, argue that it is analogous to a dog, then demand that Maine Coons be included in textbooks on dogs as kinds of dogs. To do that, I could make a much better case than Poythress does. After all, cats and dogs both walk on four legs, have tails, have sharp teeth, are usually covered with fur, are mammals, have sensitive noses, and are founds in hundreds of thousands of homes. So there y'go: cats are analogous to dogs, therefore cats are (in a Poythressian sense) dogs. People who argue that cats and dogs are different really "need to cool down," as Poythress scolds us.


Prophecy, for instance, is one thing only in the Bible: it is morally-binding direct revelation, inerrant in both bestowal and communication (Exodus 4:15-16; 7:1-2). Preaching, teaching, other forms of communication are in no way prophecy, unless they are instances of the reception and communication of inerrant, direct, morally-binding revelation.

Now, it is legitimate to try to argue (A) that modern "prophecy" is legitimate because it is the same as NT prophecy, since NT prophecy actually was weak, erring, trivial and pathetic — as modern "prophecy" is. Or it is legitimate to argue (B) that modern "prophecy" is nothing like NT prophecy, because it is not the reception and communication of inerrant, direct, morally-binding revelation. Wayne Grudem and others desperately try (and fail) to make the former argument; others (your humble correspondent among them), the latter.

But what is not legitimate is to say yes, the modern activity lacks the defining characteristic of the Biblical activity, but we can just go ahead and call it the same thing because it is analogous to the Biblical activity.

Yet Poythress does insist in calling modern imitations "spiritual gifts." What is his direct authority? He argues that they're "gifts" because all knowledge is a gift. He insists that they are nonauthoritative — yet Poythress grants legitimacy to giving them name of gifts that are definitionally authoritative.

I think this is illegitimate. We cannot apply the same name without applying the same authority. The name "prophecy" is an authority-name. It is as if we were to begin calling deaconesses "pastors" because they are in some ways analogous to pastors, while trying to argue that we do not thereby mean to attribute any authority to the office. The title is a designation of authority within a church, and one cannot grant the title without granting the authority.

Poythress tries to say "piffle" to all this fuss (as he seems to see it) about labels, naming Gaffin and Grudem as proponents of competing positions. No need to quibble, just do the Poythress-thing and get along.

Poythress insists most emphatically on the sufficiency of Scripture, and argues that his position is no challenge to that truth. "Not so fast," say I. If these are spiritual gifts, then are they the ones described in Scripture, or are they not? If they are not, if Scripture does not describe them as gifts, yet if we must accept them as spiritual gifts, and must (as Poythress insists) "take the additional step of integrating the modern phenomena into a theology of spiritual gifts," then it is clear that Scripture is not actually sufficient, since God left this crucial bit of information out. Shouldn't a "theology" be restricted to what Scripture actually teaches, if Scripture is in fact sufficient? Yet if I must do as Poythress argues, is that not premised on the de facto insufficiency of Scripture?

Put another way: Poythress argues on the basis of 1 Corinthians 12 that non-charismatics must accept charismatics' pale imitations of the Biblical gifts. Yet this begs two questions:

First, can we just make up a gift, or its meaning?

Second, if these activies are not the gifts described in 1 Corinthians 12, then how does that passage compel the mislabeling of activities it does not affirm?

If what charismatics call "prophecy" is in fact prophecy, then it must be inerrant and binding, as Poythress affirms. However, if the activity is not in fact what the Bible calls prophecy — and it is not — then is it not critical that they stop calling it such?

If these are what Scripture describes, all agree that we must accept them.

But if they are not, does it not best serve God and man for us plainly to say "Knock it off, grow up, and get back to focusing on what God does say to do in His sufficient Word"?

(To be concluded)

Part One
Part Three

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