The adjective pentecostal in our day has been generally associated in the church-going mind with a conception of noisy and unruly assemblies of those who profess an ecstatic form of religion. This conception has not been entirely false; at the same time it has not been universally accurate. After all, an observer of the noisiness and unruliness which the Apostle Paul found it necessary to rebuke in the Corinthian church would have been disposed, understandably, to dismiss these gatherings as something less than Christian. But he would have been mistaken had he concluded that there was no such thing as the spiritual gifts to which the Corinthians laid claim. Does not Paul thank God because the Corinthian believers had been enriched in Jesus Christ in all utterance and in all knowledge and because they came behind in no gift (1 Cor. 1:4 ff.)? It is precisely their misuse of these gifts that causes him to admonish them that all things are to be done decently and in order (14:40).
Today, however, the massive respectability of the old-established denominations is being invaded and in some measure disturbed by the manifestation of a pentecostal experience within the ranks of their membership. Does it not reflect on our settled ecclesiastical ways that for Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Baptists to speak in tongues should seem strange and even bizarre? Would we not have felt somewhat out of place in the church of the New Testament?—that at least is a question that should give us pause! Is it perhaps possible that in this new-old way God is breaking through the lethal formalism and superficiality of the churchanity which is all too prevalent in our Western world?
Let me quote from an article written by an Episcopal clergyman in a diocesan magazine: “Why did I have to live all of those years before someone told me that Jesus is related to life, that He is not dead, or impotent, but alive and able to help His creatures? The Sunday schools and churches never told me. The seminary I went to never told me. In fact, the least Christian environment I have ever known was that seminary. I say this in love, because, you see, they didn’t know Him either.… I thank God that He led me to seek and receive, in accordance with His Word, a pentecostal experience of my own, and that He has baptized me with His Holy Ghost.… I want to give my life to His service, every minute of it, so that other people may not be left in the dark as I was, but may know that God’s promises are true, that Jesus Christ is still alive and effective in human life, that His loving, transforming power is for everyone. I want everyone to know what a wonderful difference my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ can make in human life.”
Writing in another magazine, a Methodist minister speaks of the hunger which for years he had for the evidence of God’s power and the reality of a living Christ in his ministry, and tells of his experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit through prayer and the laying on of hands. He testifies to the fact that now he has a rest of soul that he never dreamed was possible, that he now preaches with more freedom and power, and the Bible is now real and alive, that witnessing to his faith in Christ is now easy, that his church is now blessed with vital prayer meetings, and that in answer to the prayers of God’s people many persons have been wonderfully healed of illnesses and afflictions.
A laywoman has written to me of her years of nominal Episcopalianism and her search for spiritual satisfaction through form and ritual and daily communions. “I adhered to a strict rule of life,” she says, “and said a multiplicity of prayers, and yet deep within me there was a feeling of dissatisfaction.” The experience of conversion was followed after an interval of time by that of being filled with the Holy Spirit. “I naturally rejoiced in my experience of being indwelt by the Spirit,” she continues, “and attempted to fit the experience into my theology and my devotional practices. To my astonishment, it did not fit. To my horror my theology began to change and it was most terrifying. The Holy Bible, which I had previously considered to be a history of the Jewish people plus an interesting follow-up that my Church had written, suddenly became to me the living, breathing Word of the eternal Godhead. The Body of Christ, which I had formerly believed to consist of the Anglican Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Orthodox Church, became to me all those who accepted Jesus as Lord.”
I myself have had the opportunity of meeting with some of these people who claim to have this New Testament experience and of sharing in their fellowship. Those whom I encountered in this way were for the most part Episcopalians. I have heard some of them speaking in an unknown tongue: in each case it was done quietly and briefly, and was followed (as the New Testament requires) by an interpretation, which was given by someone else. The majority of the prayers, however, were offered in English. The meetings were restrained and orderly. The serene joy, love, and devotion which marked these gatherings made a profound impression on me. They adore their Lord and Saviour; they feed eagerly upon his Word; they seek in the power of the Holy Spirit to be his witnesses daily in all their living, and they testify to the most remarkable answers to their prayers in the lives of others, in bodily healing and spiritual blessing.
Dare we deny that this is a movement of God’s sovereign Spirit? Ought we not rather to hope and pray that this may be the beginning of a great spiritual revival within the Church in our time? and to rejoice over the zeal and the joy in Christ of those who testify to this experience? If we are cautious, let us heed the apostle’s admonition to “forbid not” (1 Cor. 14:39), and also the warning of Gamaliel: “if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God” (Acts 5:38 f.).
