"Pentecostal" Outlook Spiritual Crisis Verses Spiritual Growth

by G. Prasher, Jr., Lagos, Nigeria | Category: General | May 1966

With the tide of the "new Pentecostalism" now flowing strongly, and often sensationally, among some of the "historic denominations", it is instructive to analyse certain major teachings which are fundamental to the spiritual outlook of all these movements. One feature is their insistence upon a certain pattern of spiritual crisis in the experience of every child of God. Stated in general terms, this teaching requires that after the new birth there is a separate and fuller experience of visitation by the Holy Spirit. This experience is represented as the most important step in a believer's life after he knows he has been born again. It is some thing to be given the highest priority. He must wait and pray and concentrate his whole desire upon it. He should never be satisfied until he has attained to this definite crisis in which he has proof to his natural senses of a special visitation. Different labels are attached to these experiences by different exponents of the Pentecostal outlook, but all are based on this common pattern of working towards a crisis of spiritual manifestation.

Does God's word in fact teach the believer to expect and strive for such an experience as the most important step in his spiritual life after he has put saving faith in the Lord Jesus? Let us consider what the Scriptures reveal of the believer's experience of the Holy Spirit from the day of Pentecost onwards. Few will dispute that truth applicable to the believer in the present time is exemplified in the Acts and expounded in the Epistles. That is to say, every major doctrine of the Lord which is binding on disciples throughout this dispensation will be fully substantiated in that portion of God's word from Acts chapter 1 to the end of Jude. This in no way detracts from the equal inspiration of all Scripture, but simply emphasizes to the present-day disciple the importance of truth particularly apposite to the age in which he lives. With this in mind, let us consider what God has to say about the believer and the Holy Spirit in the Acts and the Epistles.

Not once are we told to expect or to pray for this special experience!

This may be confirmed by every enquirer who cares to read again through the books in question. Then does it not seem extraordinary to urge every believer towards a crisis of experience with the Holy Spirit as the only door to fullness of spiritual life and power?

In marked contrast to this school of teaching which advocates a "crisis pattern" of Holy Spirit manifestation for every believer, the Epistles set before us a pattern of spiritual growth. Truths governing the believer's experience of the Holy Spirit are clearly stated. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father into the heart of the believer at the moment he puts faith in Christ as Saviour (see Galatians 4.6, which links the believer's relationship as a child of God with the receiving of the Holy Spirit). At that time the believer

is baptized in the Holy Spirit, for he cannot be a member of the Church the Body except the Lord Jesus baptize him in the Holy Spirit into the Body (1 Corinthians 12.13). From that time the Holy Spirit indwells him (1 Corinthians 6.19).

The doctrine of the Epistles regarding the Holy Spirit in the believer consistently assumes that each believer has received the Holy Spirit, has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, has been sealed with the Holy Spirit. Yet these Epistles exhort towards a constant exercise in knowing the fullness of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5.18), walking by the Spirit (Galatians 5.25), taking care neither to grieve nor quench the Spirit (Ephesians 4.30; 1 Thessalonians 5.19). This is growth through daily experience, a growth which may be maintained only by unremitting faith in and obedience to the word of God.

In confirmation of this, let us hear again the outpourings of the apostle Paul's great heart desires for the disciples of his day. The Holy Spirit has recorded several of these prayers for our instruction. Not once did Paul pray for such a crisis of spiritual manifestation as we are now told should be, the supreme quest of all believers. The burden of his prayers was for their spiritual growth, based upon the settled reality of the indwelling Spirit of God (see Ephesians 1.16-23, 3.14-19; Philippians 1.8-11; Colossians 1.9-11, 2.1-3).

Similarly, were this crisis experience the mind of God, we should expect the need to strive for it to be prominent in the exhortations of the Epistles. Why then do we look for this in vain? We can only conclude that an entirely wrong emphasis is given by all who advocate such teachings. This conclusion is strengthened when we hear the contradictory doctrinal explanations offered by those claiming to have attained these experiences. It will be useful to examine four of these:

(i)The Crisis Experience claimed as Assurance of Salvation. There are those who claim that until one has had a spiritual manifestation marked by speaking in tongues, there is no assurance that one is truly a saved person. This extreme heresy is quoted to illustrate the lengths to which a wrong premise has led some earnest seekers after a crisis of "manifestation in the realm of the Spirit".

(ii)The Crisis Experience claimed as "The Baptism of the Holy Spirit". Those who advocate this view follow the line that the disciples were born again through faith in Christ as recorded in the Gospels, but were taught to pray for the Holy Spirit (Luke 11.13), and, after waiting in prayer as recorded in Acts 1, they were baptized in the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. This sequence in the experience of those who companied with the Lord is wrongly applied to the present-day believer, who is urged to strive in prayer until he is vouchsafed a supernatural manifestation of the "baptism of the Holy Spirit". Now this mode of argument is deceptive. It ignores the historical setting of the apostles' experience. For they lived in a period of transition from the dispensation of law to the dispensation of grace. What occurred in their experience was unique to believers of the generation who had believed in the Lord Jesus before the day of Pentecost. For the first time in human history they were baptized in the Holy Spirit on that day. Before that time they knew the Holy Spirit's presence with them, but the Lord had taught them to look forward to something more: "He abideth with you, and shall be in you" (John 14.16,17). Shortly before His ascension to the Father, He confirmed, "Ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days hence" (Acts 1.5). It is therefore misleading to build a doctrine for believers of this age upon the experiences of apostles whose knowledge of the Lord began before the start of the present dispensation.

Actually there are only seven references to baptism in the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. (note that "Baptism of the Spirit" is not a scriptural term.) Six of these references have to do with the Lord's outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Lord Himself would be the Baptizer. He would baptize believers in the Holy Spirit; that is, the Holy Spirit would be the element in which they would be baptized by Him. The seventh occurrence is in 1 Corinthians 12.13:

"For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit."

Prayerful reflection on this verse will bring much light. For it states absolutely that to be one with Christ as a member of His Body, a person must be baptized in the Holy Spirit. That the Lord Jesus is the Baptizer is clear from four of the six references given above. So that every believer is, at the time of the new birth, baptized by the Lord Jesus in the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ. This mystery must be accepted by faith. It accords perfectly with Peter's words in Acts 11.17:

"If then God gave unto them the like gift as He did also unto us, when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that I could withstand God?"

The Holy Spirit is a gilt from God, bestowed on every believer when baptized in the Spirit at the time of the new birth. The gift is bestowed purely on the principle of faith-see, for example, John 7.39; Acts 10.43-48; Galatians 3.2,14; Ephesians 1.13.

Some have difficulty regarding the two cases recorded in Acts chapters 8 and 19. In chapter 8, the Samaritans did not receive the Holy Spirit until Peter and John came from Jerusalem and laid their hands on them, although they had accepted the Saviour under Philip's ministry, and had been baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus. Again, Paul discovered certain disciples at Ephesus who had been taught only the baptism of John; the Holy Spirit came upon them and they spake in tongues when Paul laid his hands on them, after their reception of the gospel and their baptism in the Name of the Lord Jesus There were special reasons for these exceptional cases. In the first case, we need only recall the deep cleavage which had traditionally obtained between Jews and Samaritans (John 4.9). Lest that division should be perpetuated in the early churches of God, the gift of the Holy Spirit was withheld until the apostles came from Jerusalem, thus welding the Samaritan work in close unity with that in Judea. In the second, the manifestation of tongues when these disciples of John accepted the gospel would emphasize to them the distinctive character of the truth they had now embraced.

It would be unsound to build up a doctrine on such exceptional cases. Basic doctrine on any subject must be built on the main body of teaching in the Scriptures. Exceptions serve to emphasize a general rule rather than contradict it. What then do we find was the general rule regarding baptism in the Holy Spirit? The case of Cornelius and his friends, in Acts chapter 10, illustrates the normal experience of the Gentile believers in this age-as they received the word, the Holy Spirit fell on them. They were born again, and simultaneously baptized in one Spirit into the Body of Christ. In their case this baptism was marked with outward manifestations, to teach Peter and his Jewish brethren that "God had also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (Acts 11.18). From that time forward, the many who accepted the gospel were all baptized in one Spirit into one Body upon putting faith in the Lord Jesus (compare, for example, Acts 18.1-Il and 1 Corinthians 12.13).

The outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, and the three cases quoted from Acts 8, 10, and 19, all confirm how effortless was this reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit. There was no striving or crying for the gift. Nor was it dependent upon the holiness of life of those who received it. Every believer received the Spirit as a gift from God, and was baptized in one Spirit into the Body of Christ. This was as much part of his heritage through faith in the Lord Jesus as the gift of everlasting life or the forgiveness of sins.

(iii) The Crisis Experience claimed as confirmed by Tongues. Some teachers extend the foregoing view by asserting that the crisis of the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" is not truly experienced unless one has spoken in tongues. This is quite out of line with scriptural precedent. There are only three places in the whole story of the Acts where speaking in tongues is mentioned - 2.4, 10.46, and 19.6. The three thousand saved on the day of Pentecost were all baptized in one Spirit into one Body; so were the additional converts of Acts 4A; also the eunuch of Acts 8, and the apostle Paul in Acts 9; to say nothing of the multitudes of converts reached during the missionary journeys of Paul and others. Yet in none of these cases does the Spirit record any miraculous manifestation accompanying the great reality of baptism in the Holy Spirit. We

rightly conclude that in the great majority of cases baptism in the Spirit into the Body of Christ took place without any outward proof to the natural senses. So it has been with multitudes of believers down to the present day. Every born-again one, being a member of the Body of Christ, must necessarily have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

This is confirmed by comparing the great "proof text" of 1 Corinthians 12.13 with verse 30 of that chapter. Verse 30 implies that all had not spoken with tongues; yet all had been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

(iv) The Crisis Experience claimed as proof of the Holy Spirit's Fullness. There are other Pentecostals who teach that, whereas the believer is baptized in the Holy Spirit at the moment of the new birth, he must nevertheless seek for a further special blessing, which is the only true evidence of attaining the fullness of the Holy Spirit. In effect, what many describe as a "baptism of the Holy Spirit" others describe as "a filling with the Spirit". It is still presented as a marked crisis towards which every believer must strive until he attains ft. It will be an unmistakable experience, obvious to the natural senses, even though the manifestation may vary in detail from person to person.

This change of terminology from "baptism of the Spirit" to "fullness of the Spirit is scripturally untenable. For we are exhorted to be "filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5.18) as a matter of habitual exercise, not of unique crisis. We have examples of men whose spiritual character was such that they could be described as "full of the Holy Spirit", that is, habitually so (see Acts 6.5, 11.24).

Hungering and Thirsting that we may be filled

The special object of this article is to show that God's word does not lead the believer to expect that by a sudden crisis in his spiritual life he will automatically be raised to a higher plane of Christian experience. The essential conditions for spiritual growth must be maintained if life-long progress is to be known. There will be a proper hungering and thirsting after a fuller knowledge of Christ and a greater resulting power in service. One example of such longings is expressed for us in Paul's prayer for the Ephesians:

"That ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God" (3.16-19).

If yearnings for a deeper and fuller knowledge of God are not stirred in the believer's heart by the Holy Spirit there is something lacking in his experience. Care is needed lest earnest exercise for a continuing fullness of the Holy Spirit be neglected.

Nor must we overlook that some Christians who have never claimed spiritual manifestations have nevertheless known crises in their spiritual life which have left indelible impressions. Many have borne witness to God's dealings with them in this way. Deep exercise for greater holiness of life or power in witness have been followed by an unforgettable realization of the presence of God, and a fullness of the Holy Spirit which has marked a distinct transformation of their spiritual life. To God be the glory for such experiences and their results! Yet we must guard against building wrong doctrine on these experiences. The instructed believer appreciates that God in His sovereignty grants these experiences to some; but He has not guaranteed them to all. There is a useful parallel in God's dealings with Israel in Old Testament times. All earnest Israelites could attain a measure of spiritual growth and enlightenment simply by ensuring that the basic condition of heart was right. "What doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Through some, however, God had a special purpose, land in fitting them for their tasks He manifested Himself uniquely to them. He spoke "in divers portions and in divers manners". Moses stood with unshod feet as the Voice of the eternal God spoke to him from the burning bush; Elijah covered his face with his mantle at the cave entrance as the still small voice filled his heart with awe; Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up; Daniel's comeliness was turned to corruption at the divine presence. If then a believer should be vouchsafed some particular experience of God's manifest presence, let him cherish the blessing which he has received through it; but it may not be God's will for another to have an identical experience.

"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life" (Jude 20-21).

G. Prasher, Jr., Lagos, Nigeria | May 1966
General