Introduction⤒🔗

During the last ten years or so there has been a flood of books, articles, conferences and the like, in which recipes are offered that promise a richer spiritual life than the church of the Reformation ever knew. The church has lived too long in a situation of forgetting the Holy Spirit and the time has come for new experiences of the Spirit.

In itself this wish is not new. In the second century this focus on extra experience by the Holy Spirit was present in the Montanist movement. In the Middle Ages the monk Joachim of Fiore cried out: “The age of the Father and the Son is over, the time of the Spirit has come!” Spiritualistic Anabaptist preachers in the time of the Reformation – and in opposition to it – stressed the same thing. It was said that hearing the direct voice of God, by inspiration of the Spirit, means much more than such created, earthly means as the Bible and the church.

Time and again we hear such claims anew. They are presented as a prophetic witness against the spiritual decline of the present church, calling on the church to submit to the Spirit of God and to open itself up to the charismatic gifts that are available.

This description of the church as being halfhearted and in decline should not be dismissed too hastily. But how are we to react, then, to such appeals, suggesting that, like in the days of Joachim of Fiore, “now again is the time of the Spirit”?¹ You might even conclude that the church has for too long only concentrated on Christ as the foundation of its spiritual life.

A century ago in 1906 the Pentecostal Movement started its triumphal march from Los Angeles and went world-wide. In the sixties of the last century the charismatic movement brought the same spirit into the churches – first the Protestant churches, then the Roman Catholic Church. But now in The Netherlands, during the last couple of years, the charismatic movement has begun to make an entry into Orthodox-Reformed denominations. Representatives from a diversity of churches in that country who are genuinely Reformed find each other in making a plea for more openness to the Spirit. ²

Among such pleas there is certainly no intention of exchanging the central place of Christ with that of the Spirit. It also is admitted that there is reason to be on guard against excesses. Nevertheless, at the heart of such messages lies the conviction that a greater openness to the Spirit, and especially to the gifts of the Spirit, is of the highest urgency in order to be healed from an underdeveloped spiritual life.

Needless to say, all of this is reason enough to reflect more deeply on the biblical relationship that exists between the church and the charismata.

1. Necessary Basic Thoughts on the Church and the Charismata←⤒🔗

If we want to reflect on the relationship between the church and spiritual gifts, we must start with something more fundamental. We have to ask: “Who is God and who is man?” From there we will see light thrown upon the Person of the Holy Spirit, and then we may discover what the goal is as God’s Spirit’s works in the church. Therefore, we must first deal with the relationship between the Triune God and us.

1.1 The Triune God and Us←↰⤒🔗

Scripture reveals that we cannot say a thing about man that makes sense, if we do not at the same moment speak about God.³ When God created man, He revealed something essential about Himself. God said: “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). This shows man’s place in God’s creation. Man, the only one of all creatures who is in the likeness of God, must subdue the earth and rule over all living creatures. In the exercise of this royal responsibility he shows that he is man, and that he belongs to God. Although he is a creature himself, he is placed on God’s side rather than on the side of creation.

God meant man to mirror the fullness of his own being. God wanted a creature who would answer and be held answerable or responsible. That we are estranged, however, from this high position is a daily reality in the lives of sinful people. Yet we are reminded of our high position. In the Bible we find God Himself looking back with grief and pain upon man as He had made him. In Psalm 8 we hear a man, by inspiration of God’s Spirit, saying “God made him little lower than divine.” This not only indicates the paradise that was lost, it also reminds us of a way back. Did God Himself not open up a perspective on the restoration of man in Genesis 3:15 – that mother of all promises?

We are reminded of our origin and of the fact that it used to be normal for the Lord God to come to man in the Garden of Eden. Man heard God’s footsteps and was very close to God. We hear that in the words God spoke at the very moment when man became disobedient. As man hides in the garden, God says: “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:8-10). Indeed, being intimate with God belongs to the very nature of man. Even when that intimacy is ruined by sin, God still aims at it. All that follows in the Bible fits into this framework.

So we meet Abraham, the friend of God (2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23). And with him all the peoples of the earth will be blessed (Genesis 12:3). The covenant of God with his people is directed to that blessing which implies intimate fellowship.

The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.Psalm 25:14 KJV

It is very meaningful that God’s Son came to this world, that He became man, and that He addressed sinful people as his friends (Luke 12:4; John 11:1-3, 11; 15:14-15). In his high-priestly prayer He pleaded with his Father, that God’s love for such people should mean as much as the love of the Father for his only-begotten Son (John 17:23-24, 26).

This all is related to the deep mystery of God’s Trinity. I can only point to a few things. ⁴ The Bible gives ample proof how the Father, Son, and Spirit in their entire divine existence are perfectly one. We meet the Father sending his Son for the atonement of our guilt. We meet the Son who made Himself nothing and who went in obedience (Philippians 2:5-8), even on the road of suffering and death, a road on which He learned obedience from what He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). Then there is the Spirit, poured out by the Son, from the Father (Acts 2:33; 15:8). The richness of God’s Trinity opens itself up to us as soon as we discover redemption. How near the Lord God is to us when the Spirit of God is poured upon men! At Pentecost the Spirit of God came to dwell among and in people. Sinners, coming to faith in the Lord Jesus, receive the Holy Spirit as the seal of the renewal of their hearts (Ephesians 1:13; 4:30). He never draws our minds exclusively to Himself.

Especially the congregation of the Lord must be aware of that. The congregation is called a temple of the Holy Spirit, or described more fully as “a place where God dwells through his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). The temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:15; Ephesians 2:21) is also the people of God (2 Corinthians 6:16; Hebrews 8:10; 1 Peter 2:9-10) and at the same time the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 1:23; 4:12-16; 5:30; Colossians 1:18). So the work of the Spirit is always full of Christ and full of intimate knowledge of the Father. The congregation is connected to the Triune God. And when the Spirit dwells in the congregation, He – to use the words of Augustine – is the gift and at the same time the love (donum et caritas) of the Father and the Son.

How does the work of the Spirit of God stand for the restoration of intimacy between God and man? I said earlier: “God meant for man to mirror the fullness of his own Being.” The relationship of intimacy between God and man fits into this intention of the Lord. Here we are at the very heart of the spirituality that we must know about, namely, the relationship, that is, the restored relationship, between God and man.

When we now focus on the significance of the charismata, the spiritual gifts for the church, and we ask what these mean for the spiritual experience of believers, then we must keep this aspect of the relationship between God and man in mind. This perhaps is the most important benchmark when Reformed and charismatic spirituality meet each other. Being Reformed means that everything is directed towards our relationship with the Lord. The alternative would be a focus on the experience of man in deeper and higher dimensions.

1.2 The Relation is Recognized in Faith and Grace←↰⤒🔗

An attractive aspect of the new attention given to the charismata is its man-focused message. Man is approached from the point of view of experience. And that must not immediately be rejected! Not at all! All the aspects of our being are “antennas” in feeling, thinking, and willing, with the faculties of our senses around them, and they are all

God-given. It is all a part of man.

However, when we try to find the biblical connections of God’s contact with man, and from there look at the desire for experience that exists among Christians – or among men – then we discover a passion for experience that since the Fall is not attuned any more to our relationship with God, but to the fulfillment of our own possibilities; to the importance of our own personality.

If you are more or less familiar with the literature produced by charismatic Christians, then you may know that a charismatic spirituality exists that hardly deals with the sinfulness of man, that never quotes the publican’s prayer (Luke 18:13), and that omits the use of Psalms 32 or 51. Spiritual life is then most of all about you being important to God and about you being allowed to experience glorious living. The steps that you take on the Jesus way produce great things. Demonstrations of glossolalia and prophesying will teach you how such experiences can be reached. If you just start and try, the Holy Spirit will take over. ⁵

It is not difficult to see the sort of character this gives to our religious experiences and how the charismata fit into that. The spiritual gifts of glossolalia and prophesy, and of healing, on the basis of the great experience of Spirit-baptism, stand for an enormous amount of extra experience. Of course this is attractive!

There is a charismatic spirituality that is full of experiences, but in which there is not a trace of the relationship that I spoke about. For that reason I do not intend to focus on the extremes of charismatic spirituality. Such extremes need to be warned against lest we lose our footing. Instead, I will stress the biblical standards that are to be characteristic for our spiritual life. These standards have everything to do with the relationship between God and man. Of course that relationship has an experiential aspect! The Bible does not present a theory of the knowledge of God! It is about real men. And it is about the living God! But, we do have biblical identification marks.

Faith←↰⤒🔗

The first mark, already clearly present in the Old Testament in the language of the covenant, lies in the word to believe. Between Abraham and the Lord it was his believing God’s Word that counted for righteousness (Genesis 15:6). Between Israel and the Lord also God’s promise was decisive. The people were not told to seek security in an image or in a sign, but in the given promise. And of course that was followed by proof of God’s faithfulness, as it appeared at the exodus.

In the New Testament, it is no different. It has once been said that faith in the gospel is the central experience of a Christian (Jan Veenhof). We might wonder if we need to call it a “central experience,” but that faith is central in the NT is something about which I need not elaborate.

Indeed faith indicates what is central to a Christian. In the gospel of John we repeatedly hear Jesus say that whoever believes in Him will be saved and have eternal life (John 3:15, 16, 18, 36; 5:24; 6:29, 35, 40, 47). “Believing” means to receive admission to the fullness of salvation. In Acts we find the same. There too faith is the connection to a complete salvation (Acts 8:7; 10:43; 13:48; 16:31). Paul’s letters describe the same picture. Indeed, Romans 1:16-17 played an important role in Luther’s reformation. There in one breath Paul mentions gospel, faith, as well as life. The expression “from faith to faith” means “the all-embracing meaning of faith as the way to exist for the new man” (Herman Ridderbos).

In short, we can say that faith contains the nucleus of the Christian life. Explaining spiritual life is not possible without pointing to faith as the very heart of it. And faith does not correspond with just some part of what it means to be a Christian – no, faith is about the fullness of salvation.

What kind of life is that? The Apostle Paul says some peculiar things when he emphasizes to the Corinthians: “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Faith lives exactly by what is not within the reach of our experience. Faith is in what is outside of us – it is in the promises of God, in the Word of God.

Christians can recognize this. You might even call it a common experience! But it is an experience that does not rest on our experience! In the middle of it is not our own life but the Lord Jesus Christ. That is absolutely recognizable for a Christian! It is part of the richness of his life to say: “not I, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20; cf. Philippians 1:21), “For me to live is Christ” (Colossians 3:4), “Christ who is our life” (1 Corinthians 2:2), “nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” This biblical – and Reformed – thinking is different from the stream of charismatic experience. The question is this: is our faith about knowing the Lord and his trustworthiness, or is it about the spiritual quality of our own life in which a range of experiences relating to abundance, to miracles, to a higher existence, is brought within our reach?

If indeed Christ is our life, then by faith we do not just have something but everything. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” (Psalm 23). It is this relationship of faith, of trust, that exists between a sheep and the shepherd that gives such certainty. Faith is the connection to the fullness of salvation. That is what the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, causes a man to share in by grace.

Grace←↰⤒🔗

Since the days of Luther and Calvin we have been taught to speak in terms of sola fide and sola gratia. We know that these two aspects of the gospel go together, just as they also are not without sola Scriptura and solo Christo. In the relationship of man with the Triune God, grace is essential, because having such a relationship is undeserved. Moreover – God is the initiator. We don’t seek Him. He seeks us, sinners. The gospel comes from Him (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:15). It is his good pleasure (2 Corinthians 6:1-2). Being called to glory means to boast about grace – and then only the name of Christ is glorified by the believers (2 Thessalonians 1:12). All the time it is about Him. Grace is “grace in Christ” (Romans 5:15; 1 Corinthians 1:4; Galatians 2:20-21; Ephesians 1:6-7; 2 Timothy 1:9).

God opens his doors towards us, but not to glorify us, not to make something impressive out of us. Here we learn to understand John the Baptist who said:

He must become greater, I must become less.John 3:30

This is how faith works and how grace bears fruit through the Holy Spirit. It is not man who becomes important with his new spiritual qualities. The Lord Jesus, and his Father, become the most important to us. His undeserved grace to sinners causes them to join Paul, who could only boast in the cross of Calvary. At the same time there is this unbreakable relationship: life to me is Christ (Philippians 1:21). Nothing that Paul himself or that in the eyes of men could be counted as gain, is worthy of being cherished. Rather, it all has become loss “compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things” (see Philippians 3:7-11). For this reason he could wish that King Agrippa, and that governor Festus too, would become what he was because of his testimony of Jesus, except for his chains (Acts 26:29).

1.3 What is the Meaning of Charismata?←↰⤒🔗

With these fundamental biblical notions in mind, we may also gain a deeper perspective on the matter of experience and how it relates to the congregation of God. For also when we deal with the charismata this relational character of spiritual life is central, as is the fact that the Holy Spirit is so intensely related to Christ.

In the Paraclete texts in John 14-16 the personal character of the Spirit of truth, the Comforter, is emphasized.⁶ There we find promises saying what He will be for the disciples and for the congregation after Jesus is taken away from them. Most specifically, it is made clear that the Paraclete resembles Jesus. In fact, all that is said about the Comforter elsewhere in the gospel is also said of Jesus. ⁷ The reality of the experience of the Comforter lies in our relationship with Christ by faith.⁸

Since Pentecost or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we have the assurance of the continuation of the salvation that has come to us in Christ. That is how the gospels announce Pentecost. It is not strange that in this connection we hardly find any mention of the gifts of the Spirit. Compared to the fundamental promises in the gospels, it could be said that the charismata lie at the periphery of our personal Christian life, although they are of great importance to the church. ⁹

What, then, is the function of spiritual gifts? Paul speaks about them in 1 Corinthians 12-14. I must summarize what we find there. ¹⁰ Charismata are not qualities that provide some extra value to man; they are gifts in order to serve. The central idea is the word oikodomè, which means the building up of the church. When the charismata like glossolalia and prophesy are considered gifts that mostly serve our own personal “experience,” then that is contrary to how Paul speaks about these gifts. The apostle directed his warning precisely against the tendency that was disturbing the church in Corinth in which one believer would consider himself superior to another (see also 1 Corinthians 1:7). Corinth needed a sound view of the body of Christ. And with all the spiritual gifts that were being pursued in the congregation, such a sound view was missing. ¹¹

The simple directive regarding glossolalia as something that should be understood makes this clear. If nobody understands it, how can it build up? The tendency in Corinth to turn the special gift of glossolalia into something of extra value for him who has the gift completely shattered this. ¹²

For that reason prophesy is more valuable, because there we find understandable language. It is clear that also with respect to prophesy the tendency to pursue something higher, or more, is condemned by Paul’s teaching. A New Testament scholar, Ernst Käsemann, not exactly a Reformed theologian, said with regard to what is peculiar about the charismata, that there is a difference with heathen pneumatiká (originating from a demonic spirit), because what makes a charisma legitimate is not the fascination for the supernatural, but the building up of the congregation. ¹³ In the congregation of Corinth the majority wanted to put themselves in the foreground by means of the manifestations of the Spirit. However, the charismata are given to make others come to the front.¹⁴

A Dutch charismatic theologian (Parmentier) gave a beautiful description of the charismata. He called them “the body functions of the church.” Alas, he not does really focus on the building up of the congregation, but on the special spiritual possibilities of living by the Spirit. ¹⁵ This tendency is characteristic in all sorts of publications about the gifts of the Spirit.

If we look at the broad range of gifts found in 1 Corinthians 12, in Romans 12 and in Ephesians 4, we clearly see how all of them are directed to the body of Christ. As soon as someone pursues some gift as a means of higher personal spiritual experience, we hear Paul using the words “puffed up.” The basic intention of Christ is to make it impossible for somebody to become fixated on his or her own gifts. For that reason Paul admonishes us “not to go beyond what is written, and that no one be puffed up for one man over against another ... and what do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:6-7). The apostle’s words in Colossians 2:18-19 flow in the same direction when he warns people who boast about the visions they have seen as if they were the manifestations of angels. Apparently Paul is not impressed, because he strongly stresses that we have to keep the connection with our Head, Christ! He even speaks of an unspiritual mind that puffs up such a man!

How reticent the apostle is when dealing with his own qualities. He could easily have boasted about his study, his addiction to the service of God, his being irreproachable according to the standard of the law and about the status of special gifts. However, all such things which he used to see as profit, he now considers as garbage because of Christ. Why? Because the knowledge of Christ, his Lord, surpasses all this (Philippians 3:5-8). Faith in Christ and the grace of Christ are applied by the apostle as the benchmarks of his service. And if his service really was not in vain it is because, as he says,

Yet it was not I, but the grace of God that was with me.1 Corinthians 15:10

Remember that this remark was directed deliberately at the Corinthians who were so preoccupied with the “enriching” possibilities of their charismata!

It is not by chance that in the biblical word charisma we find the word charis and that first of all it means “grace.”

2. New Insights?←⤒🔗

2.1 The Problem of a Real Discussion←↰⤒🔗

I announced this lecture as dealing with “new insight?” I did this because some remarks have to be made regarding the plea for a greater openness towards charismatic spirituality. In fact, the question before us is whether we need such openness. Discussions sometimes end with observations like:

The warnings are serious enough, and he apparently knows what he is talking about, but we need to have more openness for an extra filling of the Spirit.

We stand together on the basis of the Reformation’s confession of grace alone, faith alone, the Scripture alone, and Christ alone and if, in accepting this charismatic way of thinking, we lose this foundation, then that surely constitutes something that needs to be kept in mind. ¹⁶

And we do this not just to hold on to a conservative way of thinking or to what has traditionally been accepted as the truth in Reformed churches, but because there is a biblical benchmark to spiritual life. And for that reason, if we perceive that this influence has begun to penetrate truly reformed churches in The Netherlands – and in North America it will not be any different – we have a responsibility to test the spirits.

2.2 Focus on the Charismatic Experience←↰⤒🔗

In order to focus on what is at stake and on what is to be distinguished, I will concentrate on what may be called a blind spot. In the history of both the Pentecostal Movement and the Charismatic Movement experience was first and only afterwards was there some theological reflection. Meanwhile, Pentecostal, as well as Charismatic theologians, have reached the conclusion that an exegetical foundation is lacking for the experience of a baptism with the Holy Spirit as a “second blessing.” Instead, several “models” have been developed that safeguard this highest experience that was their point of departure, thereby trying to construct a different basis to it. ¹⁷

At the same time no one has come to the conclusion that the character of these cherished experiences themselves are open to be questioned.

Yet that is what happened a century ago in the history of the Pentecostal revival in Wales. Jessie Penn-Lewis, together with Evan Roberts, the leader of this revival, wrote a book War on the Saints. ¹⁸            

She warned against the seducing spiritual powers that can penetrate into one’s mind when someone opens himself to receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. She did not go so far as to criticize the theological construction of a second blessing. In Pentecostal circles this book is generally condemned, but no one has ever really discussed what it says.

In the South-African branch of Pentecostalism, the Pentecostal dogma which insists that glossolalia is proof of having received the baptism with the Spirit is not accepted. They knew that glossolalia is a phenomenon that is also present in pagan and syncretistic religious movements and they realized that without the confession of salvation in Christ alone, this experience itself would arouse suspicion.

More generally, however, questions about charismatic experiences are rarely asked. This is the case even in the face of those miraculous healings that look more like occult miracles. Performances like those by T. B. Joshuah from Nigeria, Benny Hinn and others belonging to the so-called Toronto Blessing call for the necessity to test the spirits to see whether they are from God. According to 1 John 4, this is not a call for theological discussion but for dealing with the question whether a certain phenomenon is from God or from the darkness.

It is not without reason that Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11 – the chapter where he also makes clear that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light (v. 14) – against a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached and against receiving “a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted.” Does that warning mean nothing? The apostle’s fear is that exactly in this congregation in which so many were inclined to seek higher experiences, that perhaps, “as the serpent with its cunning deceived Eve, the minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3-4).

If we notice such blind spots, spots which are also blind and deaf to the warnings of the Holy Spirit in his Word, then we may also think of the Word of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23. There will be those in the last judgment that have prophesied in the name of Jesus, that have cast out demons, and that have performed many miracles, and yet they will be told plainly: “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

I want to stress the fact that we are not dealing with excesses, but rather questioning the source from which these experiences come. We have the Scriptures that present us with the benchmark. We live in an age in which also theologically sound Reformed people accept without criticism all sorts of charismatic experiences, healings and exorcisms.

Many more examples could be given that give reason for concern. But I do not want to focus on the examples or excesses. I prefer to focus on “the sincere and pure devotion to Christ,” as well as on grace and faith.

There may be reason to criticize the spiritual condition of the church in our days, but the medicine that would build up the body of Christ must be found in the Spirit of Christ. The gifts He provides are situated nowhere else but there where the only Name given for salvation is heard and is known.