If you watch any production (Christian or otherwise) about the life of Paul or the early church (basically, the events in the Book of Acts), you may or may not notice-- depending on your familiarity with the Book of Acts-- that speaking in tongues is carefully avoided, even though this is the very evidence of the Spirit that led the Jewish Christians to accept that the "blessing of Abraham" had come on the Gentiles.
If you want to know what is "scandalous" in a society look at what they edit out. The Holy Spirit is edited out of the Book of Acts, ludicrously, because the manifestation of such raises uncormfortable questions. So first century Christianity is forced to look like "modern" Christianity, in a unbecoming but all too common form of revisionism. Until the last two decades, the church in America has largely acted as though scandalized by the charismata of the Holy Spirit, and in the name of "that old time religion" depended on sketchy arguments about Paul predicting the demise of the first century charismata in 1 Corinthians 13 (the "love chapter"), a doctrine of "cessationism" which tries to explain why charismata were once essential for the "upbuilding" of Jesus' church but not now (we are presumably operating in the love and power of the Spirit ever much more than the church of that time).
John MacArthur, a pastor who has tried to purge Christianity of "free ride" salvation, has renewed his attacks on illicit and unapproved manifestations of the Spirit with his "Strange Fire" conference last year. Dr. Michael Brown responded to it in a very generous and articulate plea to respect the Holy Spirit and to not mischaracterize the typical charismatic believer.
Does anyone find it curious that Jesus' discussion of the "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit" comes in the context of Pharisees accusing Him of casting out devils by Beelzebub? MacArthur refers the manifestation of the Spirit in charismatic churches, which extols the name of Jesus as Brown points out, as the blasphemy of the Spirit in the name of the Spirit, the setting up of an "idol spirit" in the church. MacArthur seems to believe, with the Pharisees, that Satan casts out Satan and that Satan's kingdom is divided. The "blasphemy" Jesus speaks of seems to be the attribution of the acts of the Spirit to the devil. MacArthur must be overwhelmingly confident that he is not making the same mistake, and he instead redefines blasphemy to be wrongfully attributing the works of an "idol spirit" who heals the sick and exalts the name of Jesus to that of the Holy Spirit. The humility of Gamaliel would be appropos in this situation, as Brown has argued elsewhere.
Christians who devote their energy to purging doctrinal error from Christianity seem to have little energy for anything else. I appreciate Brown's generosity with MacArthur, but I wonder whether Paul the Apostle would be so generous. His letter to the Galatians makes me wonder. Would MacArthur fit Paul's profile of one who resents to liberty we have in Christ? I imagine that MacArthur would respond that he doesn't fit the profile because he believes that circumcision is not among the works necessary for salvation.
In an article in which Derek Prince (not to be confused with Joseph Prince) joins MacArthur in attacking the Christology of some charismatics, he writes:
I want to tell you that your salvation depends on your being holy. And holiness comes only from the Holy Spirit.Everything that is by grace is by the Spirit, and everything that is by the Spirit is by grace. Given the thrust of Derek Prince's 'Beyond Grace' (he might as well say, "beyond the Holy Spirit"), my salvation, my being made whole by the Father of lights, is dependent on the holiness in me (which must be in me as a tabernacle of the Holy Spirit) surfacing in sufficient holy behavior, according to Prince, and this sounds dangerously like "another gospel." In a parallel irony, Dan McConnell's popular attack on the charismatic church was titled A Different Gospel, as though a major perversion of faith was underway in the charismatic movement.
MacArthur characterizes the charismatic movement as an extension of the psychedelic obsession of the 1960s:
"[B]arefoot, drug-induced young people told the church how the church should act. . . Hymns and suits went out. For the first time in the history of the church, the conduct of the church was conformed to a sub-culture that was born of LSD and marijuana."In his apparent ignorance of the restoration of the charismata in Azusa Street Revival, and the roots even earlier in healing movements of the 1800s, Macarthur wants to redefine the charismatic movement as a some culturally liberal extension of '60s social upheaval. Did Macarthur watch Reefer Madness to prepare for his Strange Fire conference? You don't need suits and the old-time hymns to worship God. They that worship Him will worship Him in spirit and in truth, whether in suits or in bare feet.
Even Dr. Brown himself who is also a critic of what he sees as "hyper-grace" feel-good Christianity is sensitive on the issue of self-ful Christianity instead of selfless Christianity, as elaborated here:
Yes, this is the “gospel” of the 21st century, “Spirit-filled” church of America, where the cross is bypassed, denial of the flesh is scorned, purity is called legalism, and anything goes if it feels good.But this I wonder: The "false brothers" and "false apostles" that Paul spoke so vehemently against, did they not believe they were steering the believers back to purity? Did Satan let them know of his nefarious plans, or were they unwitting (through hard-heartedness) dupes?
Brown is right to question spirituality that has no time for an outward display of righteousness, but we need to also be grounded in that any so-called holiness that does not stem from a living experience of grace is righteousness by the law, and is not a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. It is a righteousness that Paul specifically had to give up in order to be "found in Him." Like Paul, I don't want any other righteousness, and I'm not interested in a salvation that depends on my goodness instead of His. If that is a path that requires self-sacrifice to be fully realized, then that too must be by grace, by His goodness. If it depends on my being holy, apart from the holiness of his sheer presence in me as his tabernacle, then I have whereof to boast. Grace is in vain in that case. "Not of works, lest anyone should boast."
If there is a "form of godliness that denies the power thereof", then there is a form of godliness that denies the grace-empoweredness thereof. The charismatic movement was partly an answer to a powerless approach to godliness, and the church is still in need of an answer to a grace-starved approach to godliness. I don't think that "hyper-grace" is making people indifferent to sin; I think that people are mistaking a denial of the existence of sin for hyper-grace. Grace is lavished upon us in the Anointed Jesus. There is a pleroma of grace, an abundance of grace. It is there to free us from "so many weights and sins that beset" us, not for us to root like pigs in our moral turpitude. But the answer to a lack of repentance is not to "tone down the grace."
As for a believer seeking to live "beyond grace," I would ask, "Having begun in grace, are you now made perfect through 'your being holy'?" O foolish Galatian, who has bewitched you?
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