Does modern Christianity derail the Holy Spirit?
In a review of David J. du Plessis’ book The Spirit Bade Me Go, published in 1964, Bishop Lesslie Newbigin acknowledged that “the Pentecostal churches are almost certainly the fastest growing Christian communities in the world.” Today this is even more apparent. In America, Pentecostals appeal to an ever widening spectrum of the nation’s citizens. And in many countries abroad their growth in numbers and in influence is phenomenal. Why do they grow? Are their distinctive views on the nature of the Christian life truly Christian? What do they have to teach the churches? And what does their witness mean for Christian proclamation?
A major part of the reason for such rapid growth is the faithfulness and effectiveness of the personal witness given by the rank and file of the Pentecostal churches. Other churches have learned in recent years to place great emphasis on the responsibility of the layman to witness for Christ, but one might hazard a guess that the proportion of their members actually attempting to do this and the results they are able to achieve can hardly be compared with what is seen in the Pentecostal churches. Why are Pentecostalists eager and diligent in this work when so many others are not? The answer surely lies in the fact that they witness to what is real in their experience, to what they know is the most important thing in the world for themselves and for everybody else. Their witness is not simply a matter of duty or of belief. The constraint comes from within them, from something that has happened to them and that they know they must share.
By their own confesssion, that something is the presence of the Holy Spirit. They do not deny the work of the Holy Spirit in inspiring Scripture objectively, nor do they denigrate the value of an objective atonement and objective revelation. But they speak of something more, a subjective quality that has entered into their conscious experience. They claim to have experienced the Holy Spirit in an endowment of spiritual power—power to speak in “tongues,” to witness, to prophesy, to heal the sick, and so on—power that they perceive in themselves and that other people perceive in them also.
In other words, Pentecostals appear to witness diligently because they have something exciting and precious to witness about. And they witness effectively because that something lends penetration and authenticity to what they say.
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The very success of the Pentecostalists’ mission and the distinctly Christian character of their claims compel the rest of Christendom to ask whether the experience that lies behind the great expansion of the Pentecostal churches is to be regarded as standard for all Christians, whether it is something that is peculiar to certain types of people, or whether, indeed, as some suggest, it is really a distortion that is rooted in purely psychological or emotional factors and does not belong to a sane, balanced Christian way of life.
The only way to answer that question is to return to the New Testament. And to do that is to take the Pentecostal view much more seriously than many are perhaps inclined to do.
One of the most distinctive things about the activity of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is that he manifests himself in the realm of human experience. He is, indeed, God entering into personal lives in such a way that men become aware of him, of what his coming means to them. This awareness is not totally unlike their awareness of other, ordinary factors that enter into conscious experience. God’s coming is something of which one is aware, as surely as he is aware of other things—the results of an injection, the effect of good news, the lifting of worry. This is perhaps the point of greatest significance in this whole matter.
One of the key words that begins to lay bare the outlines of the New Testament picture is that spoken by Peter on the day of Pentecost. When the people who heard him preach and were disturbed by his message about Christ asked what they should do, Peter replied, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). They were to do two things: “Repent,” which in that context simply meant turning back to God and giving his Son, the exalted Lord, his due place in their lives, and “be baptized,” which carried as its central meaning the acceptance of God’s forgiveness of their sins through Jesus Christ. If they did these two things, God would do something for them. He would bestow on them the same gift that they had already seen bestowed on the apostles, the same remarkable spiritual power that had transformed them.
Moreover, this gift was for all who would believe. “The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39).
Now it is obvious that a remarkable change did come to those people who believed and were baptized on the day of Pentecost and thereafter. In the closing verses of Acts 2, Luke pictures a joyful people closely knit together, gladly sharing their possessions with one another, praising God, having “favor with all the people,” and making such an impression on the city of Jerusalem that their numbers increased daily. This was not their normal state. It was a mark of the change that had taken place in them, a change of which, without doubt, they were deeply conscious.
Similar results followed Philip’s preaching in Samaria (Acts 8). The change wrought by this gift was so marked and so apparent to onlookers that Simon the Sorcerer wanted to be able to wield this influence himself. It was not hidden and secret. It was open and obvious, a vivid part of the ordinary Christian’s experience.
So also with the group that heard Peter preach in Cornelius’s house (Acts 10; 11). The Holy Spirit was given to them without doubt and was given in such a way that the people themselves knew it. Peter and the others could see it also.
The evidence of the New Testament Epistles is no less significant. Paul’s words to the church in Corinth about the diverse gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12; 14) certainly refer to something that was a well-known element in the life and experience of the congregation. To speak about God’s having given “the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor. 1:22) could have had no meaning if the Spirit was not something they could discern and be aware of as part of their conscious experience. The Apostle’s references to the Spirit in the eighth chapter of Romans suggest the same truth. And the first Epistle of John argues, “Hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us” (3:24b).
These references indicate that the promise Peter cited on the day of Pentecost was amply fulfilled in the experience of the New Testament Church. The gift of the Holy Spirit was not confined to the apostles, nor to a special few, nor to the day on which he was first manifested in this new form. A personal awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit was a normal part of the experience of being reconciled to God. It was God’s response to all who turned to Christ in repentance and faith. It was God’s confirmation that they were accepted by him and had entered into the new life of his Kingdom. Moreover, it was a confirmation only because it was something they experienced. They did not just assume that something new had happened to them. They knew it had, for the evidence of it was plainly seen by themselves and others.
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Both the teaching and the experience of the New Testament Church make it plain that there were certain marks of the Spirit’s presence that were common to all who believed, and there were other marks that were peculiar to individuals and were greatly varied.
This appears to be the distinction made by Paul when he speaks of the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22, 23) and the “gifts and the Spirit” (1 Cor. 12). Fruit is that which grows naturally and inevitably on a particular tree. And wherever that tree grows, it produces the same fruit. The Apostle teaches, therefore, that whenever the Holy Spirit enters into a man and dwells there, invariably his presence will be revealed by certain results. These are: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”
These are not hidden qualities. Their presence in a man’s life is known to him and to others as well. Who does not know when love wells up in his heart? Who is not aware of joy when it comes to him? Who is not conscious of peace when it steals into his soul? And who can have these qualities without their being sensed by other people?
So the universal mark of the coming of the Holy Spirit is the gift of such inward qualities as these, qualities that reveal themselves in the experience of those who receive them, and that arc evident to those who look on. This fruit is evidence of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of spiritual power.
The gifts of the Spirit that Paul refers to in his letters to the Corinthians, and elsewhere, seem to stand in contrast to the “fruit” of the spirit. The fruit is singular; the gifts arc plural. The fruit of the Spirit relates to quality of character and spirit; the gifts have to do with men’s ability to serve the Kingdom of God among men. The fruit is common to all who receive the Spirit; the gifts are apportioned as he chooses. One man has the gift of inspired speech, another of healing, another of faith, another of administration, another of ecstatic experience.
Thus, in addition to the universal marks of the presence of the Holy Spirit in man’s lives, there are other marks that differ from person to person, so that the presence or absence of any one of them cannot be applied as a test of whether the Spirit has entered a man or not.
The significant point is that the power to serve the Kingdom of God effectively, in one way or another, either by the living of the Christian life, or by specific ecclesiastical or missionary activity, is to be expected as a consequence of the Spirit’s coming.
We are not reconciled to God merely for the sake of our own salvation. God’s will is that we should share in the work of his Kingdom on the earth. And when we are reconciled to him, the power of God to do his work is part of the gift that he bestows upon us. “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witness unto me.…” (Acts 1:8).
In this sense, the gifts of the Spirit should be set alongside the fruit of the Spirit as one of the sure marks of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our life. We should find ourselves able to do things for the Kingdom of God that previously were beyond us. They may seem very small and unspectacular, or they may be enough to astonish ourselves and others. They will be capable of being interpreted in quite other ways. But we will know within ourselves that they are not simply our doing. They will have been accomplished through our efforts, but their effectiveness will be due to the touch of the Spirit of God upon us. We will not know the full range of what is accomplished. We will see only a little here and there. But it will be sufficient to confirm within us the awareness of God’s presence and God’s power.
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Two practical things seem to spring out of all this. First, if the Holy Spirit is to be real in the experience of the Church and its members, all followers of Christ need to be given explicit instruction about his place in their lives. Jesus made sure that his disciples understood what to expect. He encouraged them to look for something special to happen. Those in the early Church laid special stress on the matter. And there seems to be a clear connection between the vividness of their experience and the thoroughness of their understanding.
No one would dream of suggesting that the Holy Spirit is not present in the life of the Church today, or in the experience of multitudes of its members. But it can hardly be denied that many are unaware of this because they have never been told the truth about it. They are unable to recognize what it is that has happened to them, or the greatness of what could happen to them if they only knew more if what it signified.
The second conclusion springs out of this: namely, that in the presentation of the Gospel to men in the work of evangelism, the promise of this gift of God should have its proper place alongside the call to repentance and faith in Christ. Peter’s reply to the people on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:38) would seem to supply the proper pattern of the evangelistic message, a pattern that, in the main non-Pentecostal churches at least, is often followed only in part.
If this is a true interpretation of the matter, then it is important to tell the inquirer not only what he must do but also what God will do to him and for him in response. Somewhere here lies the key that opens the door for the believing and obedient one and admits him into the joy and power of Christ’s Kingdom. And, if the Pentecostal churches’ experience is any guide, somewhere here also lies the key by which the rest of the Church may discover that effective and dynamic witness which makes our Pentecostal brethren so significant for our times.
