The rain descends.

As we continue to republish the 1995 classic volume ‘Blessing the Church?’, David Forbes turns from the Latter Rain Movement’s early precursors to the movement’s outbreak and spread.

As stated last week, the Sharon group were much affected by the teaching of Franklin Hall on fasting. Ern Hawtin wrote in his account of the beginnings of the 'Latter Rain Revival':

The truth of fasting was one great contributing factor to the revival. One year before this we had read Franklin Hall's book, entitled 'Atomic Power with God Through Fasting and Prayer'. We immediately began to practise fasting. Previously we had not understood the possibility of long fasts. The revival would never have been possible without the restoration of this great truth through our good brother Hall.¹

However, he failed to give any biblical reasoning or explanation of 'this great truth' and how it brought revival.

So having returned from the Branham meeting they decided to put Franklin Hall's teaching into practice and according to George Hawtin, “Some fasted for 3 days; some for 7 days; some fasted for 10 days; some 2 weeks; some for 3 weeks; some fasted for 30 days; and one man fasted for 40 days”.

It was not however until February 1948 that the long-awaited revival arrived. On 11 February, one of the Bible School young ladies prophesied “saying that we were on the very verge of a great revival, and that all we had to do was open the door, and we could enter in”. When she had finished prophesying, George Hawtin rose and prayed “beseeching God and telling him that he had informed us that we were on the very verge of a great revival, and all we had to do was enter the door but George Hawtin said, ‘Father, we do not know where the door is, neither do we know how to enter it’”.

The following day, 12 February, was described by Ern Hawtin as follows in his report How this Revival Began:

…I shall never forget the morning that God moved into our midst in this strange new manner. Some students were under the power of God on the floor, others were kneeling in adoration and worship before the Lord. The anointing deepened until the awe of God was upon everyone. The Lord spoke to one of the brethren, 'Go and lay hands upon a certain student and pray for him'. While he was in doubt and contemplation one of the sisters who had been under the power of God went to the brother saying the same words, and naming the identical student he was to pray for. He went in obedience and the revelation was given concerning the student's life and future ministry.

After this a long prophecy was given [by Ern Hawtin] with minute details concerning the great thing God was about to do. The pattern for the revival and many details concerning it were given. To this day [his report was written 1 August 1949] I can remember the gist of the prophecy, “These are the last days, my people. The coming of the Lord draweth nigh, and I shall move in the midst of mine own. The gifts of the Spirit will be restored to my church. If thou shalt obey me I shall immediately restore them. But Oh my people I would have you to be reverent before me as never before. Take the shoes off thy feet for the ground on which thou standest is holy. If thou dost not reverence the Lord and his House, the Lord shall require it at thy hands. Do not speak lightly of the things I am about to do for the Lord shall not hold thee guiltless. Do not gossip about these things. Do not write letters to thy nearest friends, of the new way in which the Lord moveth, for they will not understand. If thou dost disobey the Lord in these things take heed lest thy days be numbered in sorrow and thou goest early to the grave. Thou hast obeyed me and I shall restore my gifts to you. I shall indicate from time to time those who are to receive the gifts of my Spirit. They shall be received by prophecy and the laying on of hands of the presbytery.”

Immediately following this prophecy, a sister who was under the power of God gave by revelation the names of five students who were ready to receive. Hands were laid upon them by the presbytery. This procedure was very faltering and imperfect that morning but after two days searching the word of God to see if we were on scriptural grounds, great unity prevailed and the Lord came forth in greater power and glory day by day. Soon a visible manifestation of gifts was received when candidates were prayed over, and many as a result began to be healed as gifts of healing were received. Day after day the glory and power of God came amongst us. Great repentance, humbling, fasting and prayer prevailed in everyone.²

Ern Hawtin's prophecy stated that “the gifts of the Spirit will be restored to my church”. Although one of the main marks of the advent of Pentecostalism at the turn of the century was the manifestation and operation of the gifts of the Spirit, there had been a general falling away of the use of these gifts amongst the Pentecostal churches, and this lack had been recognised. It was this lack that brought the events at North Battleford into the limelight.

There had been a falling away of the use of spiritual gifts in Pentecostal churches, and it was this lack that brought events at North Battleford into the limelight.

Because the North Battleford brothers were successful in imparting spiritual gifts by the laying on of their hands, people came from all across Canada and the United States to their meetings so that they, too, might partake of these spiritual gifts for which many of them had long been praying.

As mentioned last week, the leadership of the Pentecostal denominations were not prepared to accept that the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit could be imparted by the laying on of hands. For nearly 50 years they had clung to the methodology of the Azusa Street revival in which 'tarrying' or waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit on one's life was practised (Acts 1:4). Ernest S Williams, who was General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God at that time, said, “Concerning the nine gifts spoken of in 1 Corinthians 12, if you will carefully read the account I think you will discern that they each come directly from God's sovereign bestowment; I do not find any record where they are to be bestowed by means of an intermediate channel”.

Of course if one reads the record of the Acts of the Apostles we find that no one methodology was used as far as receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit is concerned (Acts 2:4, 8:17, 10:44). However, we need to remember that the question of formulae and methods in ministry, including the use of the laying on of hands, has never been adequately resolved in the charismatic movement.

The Movement Spreads

In keeping with the injunction in the prophecy over publishing news of the 'revival', the March issue of The Sharon Star contained no news of what had happened, but an editorial on the subject appeared in the April issue. This published report undoubtedly played a large part in attracting a larger-than-usual number to the 1948 Annual Feast of Pentecost camp meeting. Its front page had also carried headlines reporting 'Two Modern Miracles' involving healing at Sharon Bible College.

There were many testimonies from pastors across the country as to how God had empowered them during their time at the camp meetings so that it had revolutionised their home churches and by May 1948, parallels were already being drawn with the earlier Pentecostal revival of 1906. George Hawtin suspected that “revival is breaking out among small groups all over America and no doubt in other countries as well”. There were certainly reports from Norway that some kind of revival was taking place among Pentecostals at that time.

The question of formulae and methods in ministry, including the use of the laying on of hands, has never been adequately resolved in the charismatic movement.

Hawtin also noted that the restoration of the gifts of the Spirit was the result of God giving “new revelation” of truth from the Scriptures. He wrote that “great revivals always are accompanied by some present truth when old light is rediscovered...”.³ It soon became a prominent idea in the movement and created an expectation that the Lord would continue to reveal new truth from the scriptures.

This belief in a new wave of the progressive revelation of scriptural truth through prophecy became widespread and has continued to be a pervasive influence in charismatic churches, thousands of which have adopted various ideas that became prominent in the ministry of the North Battleford brethren.

Points of Controversy

As in the case of Branham and the healing evangelists, the Sharon group were keen to stress their concerns for unity. Reg Layzell, who was one of seven men 'ordained' by the Sharon leadership to exercise an 'apostolic ministry' on behalf of the 'Presbytery' but who subsequently became disillusioned to the extent that he disassociated himself from them, said following the camp meeting of July 1948, “The great message that stirred all souls was first the message of the Body of Christ coming together”,⁴ and George Warnock noted in the preface to the first edition of The Feast of Tabernacles, that “God came forth in answer to the prayer and fasting of his children, poured out the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and revealed the fact that now at this time He would bring His body together, and make His Church one glorious Church without spot or wrinkle”.⁵

However, the problem was that 'unity' always appeared to depend upon an acceptance of the teachings and practices which they as God's specially anointed apostles and prophets were now revealing. This of course was not biblical. The scriptures plainly teach that the foundation of our unity lies in our relationship by faith with the Lord Jesus. It is maintained by our daily obedience to the precepts and teachings recorded for us in the scriptures. Paul refers to this in his first letter to the Corinthian believers (1 Cor 11:2) and Jude exhorts us to “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3).

Another point of controversy that arose at that time between the North Battleford group and the leaders of the Pentecostal denominations was the former's insistence that the Church had present-day apostles and prophets. The first indication of this controversy appeared in the 1 June 1948 issue of The Sharon Star when George Hawtin wrote: “When one starts talking about prophets and apostles being in the Church in our day, the poor saints are shocked half to death. They raise their hands in holy terror and cry, ‘heresy, heresy!’".

However, the point of controversy with the Pentecostal denominations was not simply the question per se of 'prophets and apostles being in the church in our day'. There is undoubtedly a vital place in the Church for the ministry of apostles and prophets as mentioned in Ephesians 4:11, but the issue was, and remains, whether this or any other Scripture allows us to conclude that God has now raised up within the Church 'special' apostles and prophets through whom he gives extra-biblical revelation and the power of extraordinary signs and wonders to guide and direct his people in these 'last days'.

The belief in a new wave of the progressive revelation of scriptural truth through prophecy became widespread and has continued to be a pervasive influence in charismatic churches.

Also appearing in the June issue of The Sharon Star was the statement that “no church exercises or has any right to exercise authority or jurisdiction over another, its pastors or members”. This statement did nothing to help the Sharon group's growing estrangement from the main Pentecostal denominations and would have been more helpful had Hawtin applied it to the excesses of authoritarianism and elitism that later developed in connection with the 'travelling presbytery' from North Battleford, of which he was a part and which was accused of exercising considerable authority over people in other church situations by means of directive prophecy.

The Teaching of George Warnock

During 7-18 July 1948, thousands of people throughout the North American continent, having heard of the North Battleford awakening, flocked to the Sharon Camp Meeting held there at that time.

It had been preceded by a week of fasting and prayer from 27 June to 4 July which had also been widely attended. Among those attending was George Warnock, who had earlier, for two or three years, been personal secretary to Ern Baxter. It was at this time that he heard James Watt, one of the teachers at the Camp Meeting, casually mention that the third of Israel's great feasts, the Feast of Tabernacles, had not yet been fulfilled.

According to Warnock: “I somehow never forgot that, and over the period of a year or more following this, the message seemed to grow on me as I read the Scriptures…James certainly dropped a seed in my heart when he spoke of the Feast of Tabernacles…”.⁶

In July 1951, Sharon Publishers printed George Warnock's book, The Feast of Tabernacles, which became a major doctrinal work of the Latter Rain movement.

Warnock's thesis was that the three great annual feasts of the Lord in Israel's worship, which are set out in considerable detail in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, pre-figure and typify the whole Church age, beginning with the Cross and consummating in the manifestation of the sons of God (explained further next week) and the glorious display of God's power and glory.

There is of course truth in much of Warnock's work, because there is a real sense in which we can see Israel's feasts as a pre-figure of events in the New Testament. For example, Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit and obviously Passover and the death of Jesus. But what about the Feast of Tabernacles?

Warnock's proposal was that the Feast of Tabernacles is analogous to what he called “the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom 8). He taught that the Church needed to be restored. The Church was weak, the Church was diseased, the Church was totally defeated, the Church was ineffective and needed restoration.

According to Warnock, that restoration would be done in one particular way. He stated clearly that all the orthodox understanding about restoration should be discarded. Restoration would not come through reading the Bible, would not come from praying, and would not come through fasting. It would only come through the aegis of God's apostles and prophets.

Warnock taught that the Church needed to be restored through the aegis of God’s apostles and prophets.

This of course was one of the assertions of the Hawtin brothers. God would restore his Church through his newly-appointed apostles and prophets, who of course included themselves. In similar vein they were also the presbytery through whose hands God's new blessings of power and gifting were to be received. Warnock therefore taught that God was raising up new apostles and prophets and that they would restore the Church; they would bring the Church into perfection, and they would bring the Church into - he never actually used the word 'immortality' - but said they would bring forth a Church which would never know disease, which would never die, and so on. This of course brings us back full circle to Franklin Hall.

These teachings were from the 'new revelation of truth' stream which became so prominent in the Latter Rain movement and which has continued to dog the charismatic movement throughout its history. No honest examination of the biblical text can substantiate these eschatological extravagances. Acts 1 records that the Lord Jesus will physically return to earth as he physically left it and the Apostle Paul made it quite clear that he would be released from “this body of death” only at the Lord's return. It would be then that he would change “our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil 3:21). Likewise, the Apostle John tells us that “when he appears, we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2).

Next week: The movement declines and reforms.

This article is part of a series. Click here for previous instalments.

References

1 Riss, R, 1987. Latter Rain. Honeycomb Visual Productions Ltd, Ontario, p60.

2 Warnock, G, 1951. The Feast of Tabernacles. Sharon Publishers, N. Battleford, pp3-4.

3 Riss, R, Latter Rain (see 1), p70.

4 Ibid, p74.

5 Warnock, G, The Feast of Tabernacles (see 2), p3.

6 Riss, R, Latter Rain (see 1), p74.

From North Battleford to Toronto.

David Forbes begins an examination of the influence of the 1948 North American 'Latter Rain Revival' Movement, a precursor to the Toronto ‘outpouring’.

Due to unusual events and a new teaching propounded in the preceding 18 months, in the autumn of 1949, at the 23^rd General Council meeting of the Assemblies of God in the USA, held in Seattle, Washington, the following resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority:

OFFICIAL DISAPPROVAL OF THE 'NEW ORDER OF THE LATTER RAIN'

WHEREAS, We are grateful for the visitation of God in the past and the evidences of His blessings upon us today, and

WHEREAS, We recognise a hunger on the part of God's people for a spiritual refreshing and manifestation of His Holy Spirit, be it therefore RESOLVED, That we disapprove of these extreme teachings and practices, which, being unfounded Scripturally, serve only to break fellowship of like precious faith and tend to confusion and division among the members of the Body of Christ, and be it hereby known that this 23rd General Council disapproves of the so-called 'New Order of the Latter Rain' to wit:

1. The overemphasis relative to imparting, identifying, bestowing or confirming of gifts by the laying on of hands and prophecy.

2. The erroneous teaching that the Church is built on the foundation of present-day apostles and prophets.

3. The extreme teaching as advocated by the 'New Order' regarding the confession of sin to man and deliverance as practiced, which claims prerogatives to human agency which belong only to Christ.

4. The erroneous teaching concerning the impartation of the gifts of languages as special equipment for missionary service.

5. The extreme and unscriptural practice of imparting or imposing personal leadings by the means of gifts of utterance.

6. Such other wrestings and distortions of Scripture interpretations which are in opposition to teachings and practices generally accepted among us.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That we recommend following those things which make for peace among us, and those doctrines and practices whereby we may edify one another, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit until we all come into the unity of faith.

This resolution of the Pentecostal Assemblies was occasioned by the fact that some 18 months earlier, on 12 February 1948, the so-called 'Latter Rain Revival' had begun at the Sharon Bible School in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada. This 'revival' began among about 70 students who, when their names had been prophetically revealed as being 'ready to receive', manifested 'gifts' after being ‘prayed over' and having hands laid upon them by the school leadership.

George Hawtin and his brother Ern, together with PG Hunt (who along with George had recently resigned as a pastor in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada) and the Hawtin's brother-in-law, Milford Kirkpatrick, had some six months earlier joined the Rev Herrick Holt of the Saskatchewan Church of the Foursquare Gospel in an independent work called 'Sharon Orphanage and Schools'.¹ Together they opened Sharon Bible School on 21 October 1947.

The Pentecostal movement, which had begun with the Azusa Street revival in San Francisco in 1906, had by this time been going for over 40 years and much of its denominational life had become quite ritualised. It had lost its spontaneity and much of the use of the gifts or manifestations of the Holy Spirit in regular church life had become merely theoretical.

Since the mid-1930s there had existed a deep spiritual hunger in many Pentecostals for some kind of revival of the spiritual energy and enthusiasm, accompanied by the manifestations of the Holy Spirit's presence, that had characterised their beginnings.

In the 1930s and 1940s there was deep spiritual hunger in many Pentecostals for revival of the spiritual energy and manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s presence that had characterised their beginnings.

EARLY PRECURSORS TO THE 'LATTER RAIN'

There were two men in particular whose teaching and ministry greatly influenced those through whom the Latter Rain movement started: Franklin Hall and William Branham.

Franklin Hall

The men who started the Sharon Bible School were all looking for some kind of revival. Herrick Holt had been preaching for some time that God was going to do a 'new thing' in accordance with Isaiah 43:18-19, although he was still awaiting revelation from the Holy Spirit as to what the 'new thing' would be.²

Their expectations of revival were heightened and much influenced by a book entitled Atomic Power with God through Fasting and Prayer, written by one Franklin Hall in 1946. Hall was an ex-Methodist who had begun an independent travelling evangelistic and healing ministry. In the autumn of 1946 he had set up in San Diego, California what he called “a major fasting and prayer daily revival center”.³

However, Hall was very much into his own brand of theology. He was convinced that the Church was on the brink of a great worldwide revival, and that from this revival would emerge a victorious, perfected Church which would include the 'overcomers' who would attain immortality.

One of his particular teachings was that fasting was the primary means by which revival would come and bring in the restoration of the Church. He maintained that God always responded to fasting and that without fasting, prayer was ineffectual. However, he also maintained that all prayer, if accompanied by fasting, was effective irrespective of to whom it was made. By way of proof of this assertion, Hall would quote that the American Indian tribes had their prayers to the Great Spirit answered because they fasted.⁴

According to Hall, during the first year of ministry in the revival centre, there were over 1,000 people who claimed to have been converted, with many testifying to having been healed of various sicknesses and diseases through fasting and prayer. He also claimed actual appearances of the Holy Spirit in fire and smoke.⁵

Hall also taught that the restoration of the Church would involve the immortality of believers in the Lord Jesus by means of stages of spiritual growth. This would be achieved through a life of holiness plus various psycho-spiritual encounters (i.e. experiences with UFOs, UHOs - unidentified heavenly objects - and IHOs - immortal heavenly objects).⁶ He called this 'overcoming' which would bring a 'rain of righteousness' or 'a rain of immortality' upon the earth and revitalise the sleeping church.⁷

The teachings of Franklin Hall, an itinerant minister with his own brand of theology, greatly heightened and shaped expectations of revival.

Hall also taught a number of other strange and non-biblical doctrines including assigning spiritual significance to the signs of the zodiac. He believed that what he was encouraging was all part of the fulfilment of the ‘Joel's Army’ prophecy of Joel 2:3-11 when “gravity freed, great people will run up walls” and “permanent, lasting freedoms from all sickness, harmful, accident things and defeat will come about” in this present life.

He even went as far as to teach that “Freedom from the imprisonment of all gravitational forces will also be brought upon the whole man. This study teaches one the power and secrets of space flight...It gives the Bible formula for weightlessness, the 'raising up' power of those who come to immortality (Jn 6 and Rom 2:7)”.⁸

Despite his obviously aberrant beliefs and his works-orientated methodology with its possibly occult overtones, Franklin Hall's book was a great success and brought him some fame. Not only was it a great influence upon the Sharon Bible School brothers but others in the 'healing evangelism' stream such as Gordon Lindsay, Oral Roberts and William Branham claimed to be much influenced by its teaching.

No-one seems to have been in the least concerned about Hall's non-biblical beliefs and practices and simply accepted his fasting methods, presumably on some kind of pragmatic basis.

William Branham

The Sharon brothers were also considerably impressed with the ministry of William Branham and they attended a 'healing campaign' meeting that Branham was holding in Vancouver only three months before the Sharon 'revival' began.⁹ It is said that some of them had Branham lay hands on them for the impartation of spiritual power.

William Branham was born near Burkesville, Kentucky on 6 April 1909 and his various biographers say that miraculous visitations and supernatural events followed him from birth.

For example, one of his biographers, Pearry Green, relates that a visible light hovered over his crib the day he was born, accompanied by what he called “a strange aura, a Presence”.¹⁰ It is also claimed that he received his first vision at the age of three and that at the age of seven had his first experience of what he called 'the voice' which told him, “Never smoke, drink nor defile your body, for when you are older there is a work for you to do”.¹¹

William Branham’s various biographers say that supernatural events followed him from birth.

During 1933 Branham had a series of seven visions regarding forthcoming major events that would take place in the world. This led him to predict (he was at pains to stress that it was not a prophecy)¹² that the end of this present age which he equated with the Laodicean Church would occur around 1977 and the millennium would then begin.

Although it could be said that there has been quite substantial fulfilment of Branham's first six visions, the last and final vision, which he saw as occurring in 1977, and involved the physical destruction of America, has not yet come to pass.¹³

His national healing ministry began in the spring of 1946. According to his own testimony God led him to a secret cave (some versions of his biography say a cabin) in Indiana on 7 May of that year where he met an 'angel' who told him “Fear not! I am a messenger, sent unto you from the presence of Almighty God. I want you to know that your strange life has been for a purpose in preparing you to do a job that God has ordained for you to do from your birth. If you will be sincere, and you can get the people to believe you, nothing will stand before your prayer, not even cancer”.¹⁴

The angel then went on to tell him that it would be necessary for people to confess their sins before they appeared before him for ministry and that he would be used to preach to multitudes all over the world in packed auditoriums. According to Pearry Green the angel told Branham of “a fabulous ministry to take place”.¹⁵

Branham also alleges that the 'angel' (whom he appears to have identified with 'the voice') told him that he would be able to detect diseases by vibrations in his left hand and have the ability to tell people's secret thoughts. Branham said that the 'angel' always accompanied him on stage at his healing sessions and stood at his side, and he is also on record as saying that the healings were not done by him but by his 'angel'.¹⁶ Branham put great store on the direction given to him by this 'angel', even cancelling meetings because of what the 'angel' told him.

Branham held his first 'healing revival' meeting in St Louis in June 1946 and his reputation soon spread. According to David Harrell Jr, who wrote a history of the healing and charismatic revivals in America entitled All Things Are Possible, “Branham's healing power became a worldwide legend: there were continued reports that he raised the dead”.¹⁷

Branham put great store in the direction given to him by his ‘angel’.

It was said that Branham's ability to discern people's illnesses, and sometimes their sins, although he had never seen them before, was amazing. Ern Baxter, who was a member of Branham's team and worked with him for between four and eight months every year for six years, said that he never once saw Branham's discernment miss. The Pentecostal historian Walter J Hollenweger, who knew Branham personally and interpreted for him on his visits to Switzerland, wrote of “Branham's ability to name with astonishing accuracy the sickness, and often also the hidden sins, of people whom he had never seen”.

Hollenweger also said that he was “not aware of any case in which he was mistaken in the often detailed statements he made”. Significantly, however, he also said, “By contrast to what he claimed, only a small percentage of those who sought healing were in fact healed.”¹⁸

Teaching on Kingdom Restoration

Branham was convinced that the Church was on the edge of restoration and the manifestation of God's kingdom on earth, basing much of his teaching on the scriptures of Joel 2:23 and Revelation 1:20-3:22. He interpreted the 'latter rain' of Joel 2 as the new Pentecostalism of his day and taught that God was restoring his Church from what he called 'the locusts of denominationalism' or 'the mark of the beast'.

From the passage in Revelation he taught that 'God's Seventh Church Age' (i.e. the Laodicean age) had come and identified it as God's final move. He claimed that the angels (or messengers) to the seven churches were simply men who appeared at particular times in Church history to bring new revelation to lead the Church progressively to sanctification.

Many saw Branham as the messenger to the end-time Laodicean Church and hailed him as the greatest apostle and prophet for the final age of the Church. For example, Paul Cain, who at that time exercised a 'healing evangelism' ministry and had considerable association with Branham, described him as “the greatest prophet of the twentieth century”.¹⁹ Voice, the magazine of the FGBMI, went further and said “In Bible Days, there were men of God who were Prophets and Seers. But in all the Sacred records, none of these had a greater ministry than that of William Branham”.²⁰

However, like Franklin Hall, Branham had some decidedly non-orthodox theological views, especially about the doctrine of the Trinity. He did not accept the orthodox teaching of a Godhead comprising of the Three Persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which he said was the 'Babylonian Foundation' of denominationalism. Rather, like the heresy of Arianism, he believed in one Godhead which showed itself in the three 'attributes' of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

As with Franklin Hall, many were prepared to totally overlook Branham's aberrant theology for the sake of the signs and wonders of his ministry.

He also espoused the view that God had given his word not only in the Bible but also in the Zodiac and the pyramids of Egypt. These aberrant beliefs, together with his unorthodox ministry methods, eventually brought Branham into conflict, first with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, and eventually with other mainline denominations.

However, as in the case of Franklin Hall, there were those who were prepared to totally overlook Branham's aberrant theology for the sake of the signs and wonders of his ministry. For example, many in the 'healing evangelism' stream did so on the basis of 'unity' which was for them an important issue. Gordon Lindsay, who was seen as the co-ordinator of the healing movement, is said to have “repeatedly stressed” the need for a “vision of the unity of God's people”. He is reported also to have said of Branham that “the uniting of believers had been the burden of his heart from the time that the angel had visited him”.

Influence in Sharon

The brothers from Sharon were very affected by what they experienced at the Branham meeting in Vancouver. This is clear from a glowing article which appeared in the January 1948 issue of their periodical The Sharon Star:

The Branham Campaign in Vancouver B.C. was a great success...Never in my life have I seen anything to equal what I saw in Vancouver...His [Branham's] sermons have the effect of inspiring faith in his hearers...To my best knowledge I did not see one person who was not healed when brother Branham took time to pray specially for him...I came home from those meetings realising as never before that the real gifts of the Holy Spirit are far mightier than we have imagined in our wildest dreams…

All great outpourings of the past have had their outstanding truths. Luther's truth was Justification by Faith. Wesley's was Sanctification. The Baptists taught the premillenial coming of Christ. The Missionary Alliance taught Divine Healing. The Pentecostal outpouring has restored the Baptism of the Holy Ghost to its rightful place. But the next great outpouring is going to be marked by all these other truths plus a demonstration of the nine gifts of the Spirit as the world, not even the Apostolic world, has ever witnessed before. This revival will be short and will be the last before the Rapture of the Church.²¹

Branham differed from the other healing evangelists of his day in that he linked healing with the casting out of demons and one of his ministry methods was to cast out a demon by the laying on of hands, so that a miraculous healing might follow.

In his MA thesis to the University of Manitoba, 'The Pentecostal Movement', CJ Jaenen suggests that Branham's use of the laying on of hands in his healing campaigns influenced the Sharon brothers to do the same in their subsequent ministry.²² This question of the use of the laying on of hands was the first issue to bring the emerging Latter Rain Movement into conflict with the Pentecostal Assemblies.

Next week: The rise and spread of the Latter Rain Movement.

This article is part of a series - click here for previous instalments.

References

1. Riss, R, 1987. Latter Rain. Honeycomb Visual Productions Ltd, Ontario, p55.

2. Ibid, pp55-56.

3. Dager, AJ, 1990. Vengeance is Ours. Sword Publishers, Washington, p49.

4. Hall, F, 1975. Atomic Power with God Through Fasting and Prayer. Hall Deliverance Foundation, Phoenix, p19.

5. Hall, F. Newsletter 'Miracle Word'. Hall Deliverance Foundation, 1985, p10.

6. Hall, F, 1976. The Return of Immortality. Hall Deliverance Foundation, p60.

7. Ibid, p3.

8. Ibid, p3.

9. Riss, R, Latter Rain (see 1), p56.

10. Green, P, 1970. The Acts of the Prophet. Tuscon Tabernacle Books, Tuscon, p39.

11. Ibid, p40.

12. Branham, W, 1984. An Exposition of the Seven Church Ages. Spoken Word Publications Jeffersonville, p321.

13. Ibid, p322.

14. Green, P, The Acts of the Prophet (see 10), p69.

15. Ibid, p70.

16. Dager, AJ, Vengeance is Ours (see 3), p57.

17. Harrell Jr, DE, 1975. All Things Are Possible. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, pp35-36.

18. Hollenweger, WJ, 1972. The Pentecostals. Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, pp354-355.

19. Hill, C. 'Kansas City Prophets'. Prophecy Today, London, July/August 1990, p6.

20. Harrell Jr, DE, All Things are Possible (see 17), p161.

21. Riss, R, Latter Rain (see 1), p51.

22. Ibid, p58.

Peter Fenwick concludes his assessment of the Toronto Blessing in the light of Scripture.

This article is part of a series. Click here for previous instalments.

The Receiving Methodology

The claim has been made widely that via Toronto ‘receiving meetings’ people have gone on to experience great advance in the realm of sanctification. It has been claimed that people have moved into areas of very significant holiness where besetting sins previously dominated.

As has been shown earlier in this chapter, the style of receiving methodology is not new in the charismatic movement. It has prevailed for years and therefore comes as no surprise to thousands of Christians. What I am going on to say may well produce a reaction of 'So what? Who cares? The whole thing works so does anything else matter?'

First of all, yet again, the New Testament, indeed the whole Bible, never gives an example of meetings being convened for the laying on of hands, resulting in Christian people being significantly more sanctified. None of the Bible's teaching on sanctification so much as hints that procedures like this could help. Yet we have been presented with this method as the great thing that God is doing in these days.

The second point at issue is that the New Testament tells us most clearly how sanctification will come about. In John 17:17-20, Jesus is praying to his Father for his people and he says “[Father] sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth”. He had previously taught in John 15:3, “Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you”.

The Bible never gives an example of the laying on of hands resulting in Christian people being significantly more sanctified.

Paul taught in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is...useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work”. When Paul addresses his farewells to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, he says in verse 32, “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified”. We have very similar teaching in the Old Testament, for example, Psalm 119:11, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you”.

What are all these scriptures saying? They are telling us very plainly that sanctification, cleansing and living in righteousness come to the people of God through the word of God, that is, through the scriptures. It is necessary to feed on the scriptures, to meditate upon them, to digest them, to absorb them and hide them away in our hearts. Through them we learn to respond to God's disciplines and to benefit from them; we learn to trust in God working out his purposes in times of turmoil and trial and tribulation.

Supremely we discover who God is - that is, his nature and character - and we read over and over again how much he supports us and how much he has done for us, and indeed, is doing for us.

We become familiar with the full revelation of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we look to in order to lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us. This is the pattern set for us in the New Testament. It is the Lord Jesus himself and the apostles who have taught all of this and we surely finish up at odds with them if in these last years of the 20^th Century we go down a different route altogether.

The Bible is clear that we can be converted in a moment following repentance from sin and faith in the Lord Jesus; it is equally clear that the work of sanctification takes a lifetime.

It is a consequence of the Holy Spirit working in the life of the believer, through the ministry of the word of God, as shown above. In Ephesians 5:26 Paul teaches that Christ will sanctify and cleanse the Church which he loves with “the washing with water through the word” (emphasis added) in order to ultimately present to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. We will take this matter a little further in the next section.

The work of sanctification takes a lifetime, and is a consequence of the Holy Spirit’s work, through the ministry of the word of God.

The Claimed Testimonies

There were those who claimed that, as a result of the type of ministry I have described, they had an experience of God resulting in a new love for the Lord Jesus Christ, a new love for the scriptures, increased zeal in witnessing and freedom from besetting sins. These are very significant claims.

However, these claims were made and accepted very soon after the ministry experience from which they were said to result. No experienced and responsible pastor would have allowed such a situation to arise. Proper pastoral responsibility to those who believe they have had an experience of God does not involve only the offering of encouragement and support; it also involves ensuring that spiritual progress is maintained and also determining whether the experience stands the test of time.

It is irresponsible to give instant public prominence to someone who believes he has had such an experience, and this for two reasons. First, it does not allow the experience to be tested. Secondly, public applause is the worst possible environment for spiritual growth. Many Toronto leaders were not without pastoral experience. Why then did they allow this?

I believe the reason is that sanctification, love of God, love of Scripture etc were demonstrably biblical, whilst all other features of the Toronto Blessing were not. These testimonies were, in fact, being used to authenticate the Toronto Blessing as a whole, the argument being that if the Toronto Blessing resulted in sanctification, it must be of God and so therefore must its manifestations and methodology.

But did it result in sanctification? As I have said, no time was allowed for testing the claims; testimonies were accepted long before anyone could be sure that there would be permanent fruit. We were being asked to accept these testimonies as genuine in order that we might also accept the Toronto Blessing as genuine, with all that this implied. This was no light matter. We were surely entitled to ask that the testimonies be proved over time before being presented as evidence. I heard of many claims of changed lives, but my own knowledge of the people concerned did not support these claims.

Testimonies of sanctification and increased love for God were, I believe, used prematurely to authenticate the Toronto Blessing as a whole.

I know many people who accepted the Toronto Blessing; most of them I have known for many years. Before they became involved in the Toronto Blessing the majority were agreeable and amiable Christians, and they remain so; but I have not noted startling changes in them. Others were less agreeable before their Toronto experience and unfortunately they also have not changed! Many of both groups reported pleasant experiences of 'carpet time', but I detected no fundamental changes of the sort that were being claimed. To me, of course, this came as no surprise, in view of the general absence of the word of God within the Toronto Blessing.

We may hope that there were some who, because of their genuine and earnest seeking of God, truly met with him and received blessing at his hand. But before we can accept the huge claims of widespread personal renewal, we must have solid evidence which has met the standards of Scripture and has stood the test of time.

Conclusion: Return to the Bible

I feel strongly that the reservations I have set out in this chapter need to be heeded. The Bible must be restored to the position of honour which it formerly had within the evangelical tradition. Unless this happens there is no knowing where Christianity will end up.

Some supporters of the Toronto Blessing object to this emphasis on Scripture on the grounds that it circumscribes God's actions. God, they argue, must be allowed to work in any way he chooses. I fully endorse this latter point, but we must recognise that one of the things God has chosen to do is to give us responsibility for testing things. He has also chosen to give us in the scriptures an account of his character and his ways, thereby equipping us with the means of testing whether or not something is of him.

Scripture contains many warnings, both from the apostles and from the Lord Jesus Christ himself, concerning the danger of deception and counterfeit works. Some of these will be so subtly disguised as to deceive the very elect. We are exhorted to watch, to test, to be on our guard, and to examine all things; and to be ready to reject those things which fail the test.

The Church must return to the Bible as the supreme authority in faith and practice. As I said at the beginning of this chapter, we are in a battle for the Bible. We must reassert its sufficiency as a criterion for judging all things. What possible grounds can there be for thinking that now, at the end of the 20^th Century, God is introducing any other?

In the new year: We turn to Chapter 4 of ‘Blessing the Church?’: From North Battlefield to Toronto, by David Forbes.

Peter Fenwick asks: was the Toronto Blessing biblical – and does it matter?

(This article is part of a series. Click here for previous instalments.)

The Toronto Blessing consisted of three distinctive parts: the manifestations, the receiving methodology and the claimed testimonies.

The Manifestations

I do not propose to spend a great deal of time on these. In Toronto receiving meetings strange things happened; people who were prayed for displayed unusual behaviour. Falling to the floor and lying supine was almost universal, and laughing uncontrollably almost as widespread.

There was a good deal of trembling and jerking, often known as the 'Toronto twitch', weeping and staggering in a seemingly-drunken fashion. Less common, but nonetheless widespread, were many other different physical movements, including certain sorts of dancing and animal movements, and, of course, the notorious animal noises. For the most part, all of these things were declared to be the result of the Holy Spirit being upon people in order to bless them.

When engaged in dialogue about the issue of the Toronto Blessing I found that all who were supporters of it nevertheless sought to play down the matter of the manifestations. It was said to me by people that they did not like them, but it was necessary to put up with them in order to lay hold of God's best.

Even though the whole of the Toronto Blessing was claimed to be a sovereign move of God, the mood amongst the practitioners generally ended up being to get these particular things under control - a strange way to respond to an alleged sovereign act of God!

Toronto practitioners generally ended up playing the manifestations down and trying to get them under control – a strange way to respond to an alleged act of God!

Generally speaking, people who went forward more than once at successive meetings tended to repeat whatever was the manifestation which they first received. If they became pogo jumpers, for instance, that is probably what they repeated at future meetings. It was also common for people who were prayed with to receive the specific manifestation characteristic of the person praying for them.

Backtracking from a Biblical Defence

During most of 1994, claims were made that all of these manifestations could be successfully held up to biblical examination, though I have to say, I have only ever seen attempts to give biblical authentication to the following seven: drunken staggering, losing bodily strength and thus falling down, laughing uncontrollably, weeping, trembling, lion roaring and convulsions.

This last one, convulsions, is a strange odd one out. Gerald Coates wrote in 'Toronto and Scripture' (Renewal magazine, November 1994) concerning “manifestations of the Holy Spirit's presence” that “Scripture gives more than sufficient evidence and endorsement for the following responses”. It was the strange odd one out because when he talked about convulsions he said “most if not all references to do with convulsions have a demonic source”. He proceeded to quote only Mark 1:25-26 and Mark 9:18, both of which are examples of the demonic at work.

This matter is in fact doubly strange as Gerald began by declaring he would give scriptural ‘endorsement’ for such responses. Convulsions, either in the form of strange uncontrollable jerks, or on the floor contraction-like writhings, were very common features of Toronto meetings, but I have never seen or heard of any being declared demonic.

Around the world at conferences and in papers, the claims that these things were biblical were strongly challenged. I do not propose here to repeat the basis of that challenge because the attempt to biblically vindicate, such as it was, has now been largely withdrawn.

The attempt to biblically vindicate the manifestations has now been largely withdrawn.

Late in 1994, the Vineyard International Council, a body which had some oversight of the churches which related to John Wimber, made the following statement which was reported in Alpha magazine:

We are willing to allow experiences to happen without endorsing, encouraging or stimulating them; nor should we seek to explain them by inappropriate proof-texting. Biblical metaphors (similar to those concerning a lion or dove, etc.) do not justify or provide a proof text for animal behaviour...The point is, don't try to defend unusual manifestations from biblical texts that obviously lack a one to one correspondence with a current experience. (emphasis mine)

I can only presume that this is a complete retraction of what was said in the earlier days. For example, in May 1994, Bill Jackson of the Vineyard Champagne Church, Illinois, produced a paper which was subsequently widely circulated and entitled, 'What in the world is happening to us?'. In his introduction he says, “Our purpose in putting this paper together is to develop a biblical apologetic for what we see happening among us. Much of what we are seeing is strange to the natural mind.”

That paper was issued to leaders who went to the Airport Vineyard Church, Toronto, and was then well used by them in their own churches in this country. The proponents have since clearly conceded that there was no biblical foundation for these manifestations.

I am in little doubt that no concession would have been made were it not for the fact that lots of us who are profoundly troubled by these things had made a very strong challenge about the feeble biblical ground the claims stood on. Without that challenge, for the reasons that I have already given, thousands of ordinary Christians would have continued in the delusion that it was all thoroughly biblical.

What Needs Biblical Justification?

However, that was not the end of the debate, because that same Vineyard International Council effectively then asserted that a biblical basis was not needed for such things. I quote again:

The absence of proof texts does not disallow an experience. If so none of us would, a) go to Disneyland, b) use computers, c) have worship bands.

All Christians ought to find a statement like this at very least surprising if not outrageous. How anyone can dare to say that we need no more biblical justification for something that is supposed to be a great move of God than we need for going to Disneyland, is completely outside the range of my whole Christian experience.

I am in little doubt that no concession would have been made were it not for the strong challenge made by many who are profoundly troubled by these things.

As this issue of what needs biblical justification and what does not will be dealt with in future instalments of Blessing the Church?, I will take this matter no further. Sufficient for me to say that it is now acknowledged there is no biblical basis for these strange things, even though they were a fundamental part of the whole Toronto experience.

Changing Declarations

We are not at the end of our problems with these manifestations. Many of their advocates have since begun to acknowledge that there is “a lot of flesh” and some demonic activity. In other words, they are saying 'there is something wrong'. But I have to draw attention to a number of things concerning these new statements.

• They do not go on to eradicate that which is of the flesh, or the demonic.
  
• They do not even go on to identify it.
  
• For most of 1994 it was emphatically declared to be the Holy Spirit at work - all of it.
  

Manifestations accelerated and got stronger when the one ministering cried such things as, “More Lord”, or wafted his hand towards the receiver. I ask myself what kind of Lord did they suppose they were appealing to, who will give them control of that sort over another believer? I further ask, what kind of Christian would want to have that kind of control?

Instead of being disturbed by this, many in this movement rejoiced that, as they supposed, God was using them.

But if they did find manifestations which were wrong after all, what were they going to do with the 'prophetic' interpretations which accompanied them? When someone roared like a lion, it was said that manhood was being restored to the Church; a man cock-a-doodle-dooing was God saying 'Church wake up!'; when young girls danced as round a totem pole, God was giving them a warrior spirit, and if your feet became hot there was God giving you the gift of evangelism. There have been many other such prophetic interpretations.

Next week: The receiving methodology and the claimed testimonies.

Peter Fenwick continues to assess the roots of the Toronto Blessing.

(This article is part of a series. Click here for previous instalments)

Restorationism: The Promise of Triumph

In the 1970s most of the ‘new churches’, as the house churches are now called, were swept by Restorationist teaching, which created great expectations of triumph for the Church of God. It was embraced as a very welcome antidote to the widespread and gloomy views of the Church's future which had been disseminated by Dispensationalist teaching.

According to that Dispensationalist view, the Church on earth could look forward only to deterioration leading to failure and ignominy. As is so often the case, one extreme position was rejected, only for another to be embraced.

Restorationism came presenting an absolutely opposite view of the Church, and taught that the Church would, in this age and before the return of Jesus, become overwhelmingly successful in every area of human life. In particular, this meant that the Church would overwhelm the secular world - not by military means, but by the force of righteousness.

The Church's influence would be so massive and extensive that it would dominate Government, education, business and finance, the judiciary, law enforcement, the arts etc. This did not mean that there would necessarily be a Christian political party in Parliament; that would not be necessary. The Church would be seen to be so glorious in wisdom and righteousness that Government and political leaders everywhere would come to it for counsel and advice.

Education planners and captains of industry as well as leaders in other fields of human activity would all in similar fashion be accepting the Church's standards and the Church's direction for their affairs. The righteous rule of Christ which is foretold following the return of Christ to the earth would be in very large measure realised before his return.

Restorationist teaching created great expectations of triumph for the Church.

Almost as a by-product, the Church and its members would become wealthy as a grateful world brought its riches and laid them at the Church's feet. Such beliefs clearly opened the door wide for the ‘health-and-wealth’ errors of the so-called 'Faith Movement'.

It was strongly felt that evangelism would probably not be needed. It would be enough for non-Christians to see how good the 'new brand' of Christianity was as relationships were put right, and as Christians loved and served each other and bore each other's burdens. They would voluntarily press into the Church in great numbers and thus be readily converted. Persecution was not really expected, failure was out of the question, and trials and tribulations were not on anyone's agenda.

Interpretation of Scripture

It must be said that the errors of Restorationism, and errors they are, did not result from the Bible being by-passed as I described last week concerning other practices. On the contrary, extensive appeal was made to the Bible. It is not within the scope of this chapter to thoroughly examine what went wrong. But the nub of the error was as follows.

Jesus and the Apostles, as recorded in the New Testament, took many statements and incidents from the Old Testament and applied them to the Church, thus usually giving them a wider meaning. These statements and incidents originally concerned either certain individuals or the whole Jewish people. Restorationist teaching followed that pattern and applied it to other Old Testament passages relating to promises given to Israel, transferring them to the Church.

I submit to the reader that this approach is not legitimate. Jesus was the divine Son of God and knew all things. He therefore had an absolute right to say which Old Testament passages apply to the Church and which do not. Furthermore, Jesus promised the Spirit of Truth for all believers (John 14:15) which enables us to discern those passages of the Old Testament that were for Israel and those that can be applied to the Church.

Great Expectations

Without doubt, Restorationism was an ultimate statement of over-realised eschatology. What is more, its expectations were to happen soon. When this was being declared in the 1970s and the early 1980s, no-one seriously believed that the year 2000 might arrive without much of this victory already well in place.

The expectations amongst the people of God were quite enormous and they would return in their thousands from the great Bible weeks fully expecting to see progress within the following months.

Naturally the churches themselves expected to see a power and beauty which far exceeded anything that had been experienced in the previous 2,000 years of Church history. Attempts were made to show that throughout the years, certainly since the Reformation, the Church had become, by successive stages, more powerful and more beautiful, and now the ultimate was about to be achieved.

Restorationism was the ultimate statement of over-realised eschatology.

It must be said that there was a great deal of human pride in all of this. It was believed that it would be the charismatic churches which would achieve this, and in particular, the Restorationist charismatic churches. They would pave the way for the other churches to participate, provided of course those other churches embraced Restorationist principles. If they did not, they would be completely by-passed by God himself as he fulfilled his purposes in the earth.

None of this has happened. None of these massive expectations have been fulfilled and many of the people who were in receipt of those promises had reached a point of disappointment and considerable disillusion.

The truth is that the very opposite has happened. In all of those fields that I have previously mentioned where the Church was expected to exercise such a powerful influence, the decline of decades has not even been arrested; moral deterioration continues and the Church which was to have been such a strong influence for good frequently finds itself an object of scorn and ridicule. It has become more than ever marginalised and tends to be thoroughly ignored by Government, industry and society in general.

Restorationism was never openly repudiated, but quietly slipped out of prominence. However, the hunger amongst the people of God for something very spectacular to happen had been born and continues to this day. The great cry was then 'God is doing a new thing' and the momentum has been kept going by new phases with the cry being repeated each time. However, there has still not been any delivery of the expectations.

Hunger for Breakthrough

John Wimber, in 1983, began a process that was to greatly widen this sense of expectation beyond the Restorationist movement. He successfully appealed to the mainline churches, even though he himself was not a 'mainline' man. He taught that signs and wonders allied to evangelism (‘power evangelism’) would lead to great progress in the conversion of the United Kingdom. It did not happen.

Strange things undoubtedly did happen in Wimber meetings and particularly during the ministry times as people screamed, fell about and trembled. The momentum was thus maintained. It was felt that something was happening and that it was all going to lead to a great breakthrough for the Kingdom of God.

The hunger amongst God’s people for something very spectacular to happen continues to this day.

When in 1990 the Kansas City prophets were introduced into the United Kingdom the whole matter of expectations stepped up a gear. It was prophesied that there was going to be a revival later that year which would surpass the revival which had taken place in this nation in the 18^th Century under the Wesleys. Yet again nothing happened, the expectations were not fulfilled and the question undoubtedly arose: how much more can even the most gullible people take of this sort of thing?

By this time, undoubtedly, anxiety was at large in charismatic circles. Thus, when the Toronto Blessing appeared, the need for something remarkable was so great that the questioning and testing procedures that should always be applied to such things were frankly superficial and sporadic at best.

Even though the Toronto Blessing was accompanied by manifestations never before seen in the whole history of the Church, including the New Testament record, because something remarkable undoubtedly was happening it has been taken on board in a most indiscriminate manner.

Decline in Bible Knowledge

Let me now turn to the second factor which made the charismatic Church vulnerable to departure from biblical truth and practice.

When the house churches first emerged, there was a lot of healthy radical thinking about Christian life and practice. The object of all of this was to endeavour to re-establish something which was perceived to have been lost, namely the simplicity and purity of the life of the early Church, as depicted in the New Testament.

Therefore, all church practices were subjected afresh to the scrutiny of God's word, and I believe that most objective critics would judge that a very great deal of good emerged from that. Even though leaders in the older denominations often saw house churches as a threat, some of them recognised how their own churches might benefit from the discoveries of these new churches.

The search was on for absolute honesty in all aspects of church life and for genuineness in the exercise of charismatic gifts. Anything that was even slightly false was questioned and as an example, house churches were dangerous places to be for anyone wishing to indulge in super-spirituality.

Unnecessary meetings were scrapped, along with cumbersome committees; silliness in charismatic things was given short shrift, and ridiculous prophecies were given no houseroom at all. There was the development of genuine fellowship and great generosity, and in the realm of demonology there was no dualism whatsoever; Christ was King over all.

The Toronto Blessing was taken on board in a most indiscriminate manner, because something remarkable undoubtedly was happening.

However, in a concerted attack on legalism, diligent application to the Bible itself also came under attack, and whether the message was intended or not, large numbers of Christians began a process of taking personal Bible study less and less seriously. At the same time, expository and doctrinal preaching came to be regarded as old hat, intellectualism, heavy and wearisome.

As a result, there has emerged a famine of the Word of God, and whilst I do not believe that this is confined to the charismatic churches it has nevertheless left large numbers of Christians without the capacity to judge for themselves from Scripture whether a thing is of God or not. They are defenceless against error, in the form of both doctrine and practice, taking hold of the Church of God.

Misuse of Scripture

It even becomes possible for leaders to seriously misquote the scriptures and the people believe that God is speaking. One video of the day showed Rodney Howard-Browne addressing an audience of thousands who cheered as he declared, “Don't try to understand this. Don't you know the natural mind cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God?”

This is taken from 1 Corinthians 2:14 and is almost a correct quotation. Paul actually says 'the natural man', not 'mind', and he is clearly referring to unregenerate man, non-Christian man. Paul goes on to talk about the Christian man, and asserts that this man has the mind of Christ (v16 of the same chapter). Such a man is, 'a spiritual man' and is required to judge all things (v15). What the Apostle Paul teaches is the complete opposite of what Browne is saying, and yet Christian people sit there cheering this appalling manipulation of the word of God.

Many people in the Toronto movement eventually took steps to put some distance between themselves and Rodney Howard-Browne, but many did not. This dictum of Browne's: that is, the by-passing of your mind and your critical faculties, has been carried far and wide into the Toronto Blessing churches and has become a fundamental factor in the whole 'receiving process' of this phenomenon.

I quote examples of what has been said in English churches.

“Don't let the Bible get in the way of the blessing.”

“Some of you Bible-lovers need to put it down and let God work on you.”

“The Bible has let us down. It has not delivered the numbers we need.”

“You must not let your mind hinder the receiving of the blessing.”

The result of all this is that when a new teaching or a new experience comes along, many Christians have no way of assessing whether or not it is of God. Even when the Holy Spirit with them is telling them 'This is very queer', they jump in just in case it is God at work they do not want to miss him.

There has emerged a famine of the Word of God, leaving large numbers of Christians defenceless against error.

If people act in this way, it is inevitable that they will end up in trouble sooner or later, and many well-meaning charismatics have been up one blind alley after another.

The dangers are compounded by the fact that too many preachers/leaders have few skills in expounding the scriptures and laying out the truth before the people. Some hardly speak from the scriptures at all, and of those who do, too many spend their time spiritualising and allegorising them.

Conclusion

The burden of what I am saying is this: within charismatic churches great expectations have been built up among the people of God; expectations that something spectacular, something extraordinary, something perhaps even sensational is going to happen.

Disappointment has followed disappointment, but no-one can possibly be satisfied with the simple life of patiently enduring hardship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, nor faithfully persevering in the face of setbacks, disappointments and defections as the Apostles evidently had to; no, there must be something very big round the next corner.

But because we live in a day when personal knowledge of the Bible is at its lowest ebb for years, and the capacities for discernment and spiritual discrimination have been discarded, the people of God are left wide open to almost anything.

Am I asserting that absolutely nobody in any pro-Toronto church has received any blessing at all from God? No, because God is always eager to bless hungry children who are truly seeking his face and I am therefore in no doubt that there will be individuals who have been truly blessed of God.

However, from my own experience, I have to add that it is on nothing like the scale that people would have us believe. There have not been huge numbers of lives remarkably changed, nor have there been large numbers of conversions, nor have there been significant numbers of healings. I shall have more to say about this next week.

Next week: was the Toronto Blessing biblical – and does it matter?

Originally published 1995. Revised and updated December 2017.

How the charismatic movement took on the characteristics of its social surroundings.

Last week we looked at the social and cultural characteristics of pop culture as it developed through the 20^th Century. This week we move on to see how this shaped the Church.

Youth-Dominated

Many of the founding fathers of the charismatic movement in Britain were men of deep spirituality, personal commitment to the Lord Jesus and with a passion to share Christ with others. Many of them, such as Denis Clark, Arthur Wallis, David Lillie, Campbell McAlpine, Michael Harper and Tom Smail - to mention just a few - were steeped in the Word of God and utterly committed to the promotion of New Testament Christianity. This, indeed, was their major objective, namely the restoration of authentic New Testament principles to the life of the Church.

There were many other men from conservative evangelical or Brethren backgrounds whose study of the Word of God led them to believe that the 20^th Century Church had strayed woefully from the New Testament pattern. They longed to see the restoration of the five-fold ministries, of the recognition of baptism in the Holy Spirit and of the exercise of spiritual gifts within the Church. Their witness within their denominational institutions often stirred heated opposition and many were ejected from their fellowships.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s a few house church groups began to be formed, although this was never the intention of those who longed to see the restoration of New Testament teaching and practice in the Church. In the early days there were men in leadership of these new fellowships who were of sound biblical scholarship and considerable spiritual maturity. But, as so often happens in a new movement, it is not the thinkers who prevail but those who are the most convincing 'charismatic' personalities, popular speakers and natural leaders.

Young men rapidly took the initiative, both in forming new fellowships and in taking leadership. This was fully in line with the prevailing mood in Western society. These young men owed no allegiance to traditional Church or denominational institutions. They were untrained for leadership and most of them had no theological education. They rapidly developed new styles of worship using guitars, which were ideal for home groups, and new styles of meetings and leadership.

As so often happens in a new movement, it is not the thinkers who prevail, but those who are the most convincing ‘charismatic’ personalities. 

Anti-Tradition

The new house fellowships soon attracted those who were discontented with their traditional denominational churches. This, of course, is inevitable with any new movement. When David was outlawed by King Saul and took refuge in the hills, it is recorded that, “All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered round him, and he became their leader” (1 Sam 22:2).

Something like this happened in the early days of the house church movement. Many who were dissatisfied with the lifelessness of the denominational churches were attracted by the informality and freshness of the house church fellowships. The early days saw many groups split away from a parent group and form new fellowships. These splits often occurred on the grounds of teaching or practice, but in reality new young leaders were arising to challenge an established leader and form their own fellowships.

The emphasis was upon all things new in response to the new experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. This was a new day. God was doing a new thing. Old established practices in the denominational churches were considered stumbling-blocks to what God wanted to do among his people. The Holy Spirit was sweeping away the dead wood in the Church and there were many calls for people to come out of the mainline churches because God had finished with the denominations.

These calls did not come from mature Bible teachers such as Denis Clark and Campbell McAlpine, who never formed new fellowships and whose ministries were trans-denominational. They came from the young men who eagerly seized the opportunities for leadership presented by new teaching and the impatience of many within the traditional churches to move faster than their pastors deemed to be wise.

In Brighton, for example, when Terry Virgo founded the Clarendon Fellowship he was joined by a large proportion of the congregation from St Luke's, Brighton and Hangelton Baptist as well as individual members from churches in the surrounding area.

Young leaders eagerly seized opportunities for leadership presented by new teaching and the impatience of many within traditional churches. 

Similar things happened in many other parts of the country, where house fellowships sprang up and rapidly attracted members of the mainline churches. These congregants were longing to experience new life in the Spirit and felt constricted by the traditions which bound them in the churches they had attended for many years.

It was a time of splits, of fission and fusion, as house fellowships multiplied, outgrew their drawing-room bases and began worshipping in scout huts and school halls. There were many cries of sheep-stealing and counter-charges of being blocks to the Holy Spirit. There were many hurts, but it is now a long time ago and most wounds have healed. The new fellowships are an established part of the Church scene. Their leaders are prominent in the charismatic movement alongside those in the mainline churches.

Most of the new fellowships planted in the 1970s or early 1980s have now aligned themselves with one or other of half a dozen streams such as Pioneer, New Frontiers, New Covenant or Ichthus, each of which is now an independent sect or a mini-denomination.

At the time these new fellowships were being formed, a significant renewal movement was taking place within the mainline churches themselves. Many ordained ministers quite independently experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit and began to lead their congregations into renewal in the Holy Spirit. Many suffered considerably in doing so while others saw quite spectacular results. Colin Urquhart in Luton, Trevor Dearing in Hainault, David Watson in York, David Pawson in Guildford and many others each attracted large congregations and saw the renewing of the spiritual life in the churches they led and the exercise of spiritual gifts among the people.

It is questionable in hindsight whether it was ever right to fragment the Church by the formation of numerous new fellowships, or whether it was God's intention to renew the existing structures. The new eager young leaders reflected the spirit of the age, both in their impatience to get on with the new thing, and with their anti-traditionalism which regarded all things of the past as only being fit for ridicule and rejection.

Certainly the Church was in need of a radical shake-up and spiritual renewal, but was it really necessary to tear apart the Body of Christ so wantonly and create such division? Would a little more love and patience have enabled renewal and a new unity to run right across the denominations? Was this God's intention for his Church?

It is questionable in hindsight whether it was ever right to fragment the Church by the formation of numerous new fellowships, or whether it was God's intention to renew the existing structures. 

We shall never know the answers to these questions, but it is a fact that the decade of the 1970s which saw the greatest fragmentation of the Church was also the decade of the greatest social unrest, the height of the social revolution.

A spirit of rebellion was running right through the nation with numerous strikes in industry and a vast increase in marriage breakdown and sexual promiscuity, with all the accompanying evidence of the rejection of tradition and the eager pursuit of new social and moral values.

It is perhaps a strange quirk that the young rebel leaders who caused great division in the 1970s and who became the leading 'apostles' of the charismatic movement are now the very ones condemning as 'divisive' those who question the biblical validity of their teaching and practices.

Individualism

20^th Century evangelicalism has tended towards individualism due to its emphasis upon the personal nature of salvation. The seeds of individualism have been there since the Reformation, but 20^th Century Western culture has greatly encouraged this. By the time the charismatic movement was born, individualism in Western society was rampant and the new renewal movement embraced it wholeheartedly.

Unlike the corporate experience of the disciples on the Day of Pentecost, the renewal movement was entirely personal. Its emphasis was upon the personal relationship of each believer with the Father. This, of course, is perfectly biblical and in line with the promise of the Lord, but the Hebraic background to Jesus' teaching has been lost over the centuries and with it the understanding of the place of each believer within the corporate community the Body of Christ.

Charismatic renewal is highly 'me-centred'. Each individual is encouraged to discover their spiritual gifting. Indeed, the gifts are regarded as personal possessions rather than together making up the spiritual attributes of the community of believers.

This individualistic concept of the gifts has led to some erroneous teaching, highly dangerous for the health of the Church, such as the 'positive confession' or 'faith movement' which has emphasised physical and materialistic values such as health and wealth. Its proponents have taught that God wants all his people to prosper, to be healthy and wealthy and that through faith or 'positive confession' these things can be obtained.

This teaching is fully in line with the desires and ambitions of Western acquisitive materialistic society which no doubt accounts for its popularity among charismatics, despite it being the very opposite of the teaching of Jesus!

Much of the preoccupation of charismatics with the exercise of spiritual gifts has been me-centred: me and my health, my wealth, my family and my personal relationship with God. The exercise of spiritual gifts thereby tends to meet the personal needs within the fellowship. The servant nature of discipleship - saved to serve - tends to become lost.

Much of the charismatic renewal movement has been me-centred: me and my health, my wealth, my family and my personal relationship with God.

Charismatic worship has both reflected this me-centredness and helped to reinforce it. A very large number of worship songs and choruses use the first person singular rather than plural. One of the great benefits of the renewal movement has been to heighten each believer's awareness of the presence of God and thereby to heighten each individual's active participation in worship and deepen their spiritual apprehension of God. This is wholly good, but the danger of an overemphasis on individualism is a loss of the corporate and thereby a loss of the essential nature of the New Testament Church as the Body of Christ.

Personal Involvement

If you walk into a strange church, you can usually know instantly whether it is charismatic or traditional. If it is traditional, the congregation will fill up the back pews first; if it is charismatic they will fill up from the front. In the traditional church the congregation is passive, the people are there to be ministered to by choir, readers and preacher; in the charismatic church the people are there for active participation. They want to be fully involved in worship with the freedom to wave their arms, clap, dance and give physical expression to their emotions.

This DIY worship is very much in line with the spirit of pop culture. Amateur musicians, worship leaders and singers give a performance at the front which is enthusiastically supplemented by the active participation of the congregation.

In the new sects which arose out of the house church fellowships, the preachers and pastors were also untrained. Hardly any of them had any formal theological training in a theological college or university theology faculty. A few had been to a Bible school although many of the younger leaders had received some sort of training from schools set up within their own sects. These were non-academic and simply pass on the limited teaching of the leadership.

This represents one of the greatest dangers of the charismatic movement, where the emphasis has been increasingly on experience-centred or revelationary-centred leadership with increasingly less emphasis upon biblical scholarship.

One of the greatest dangers of the charismatic movement is its emphasis on experience-centred leadership over and above biblical scholarship.

As the charismatic movement has tended to become increasingly driven by the leaders of new sects in concert with a handful of leaders from the mainline churches, few of whom are men of outstanding scholarship, the gap between biblical truth and current charismatic practice has widened.

The anti-professionalism of pop culture has been present in the charismatic movement from the beginning although leaders have been quick to assert their own authority. The excesses of heavy shepherding, which scarred many people's lives during the 1980s, have largely disappeared, although the authoritarianism of sectarian leadership has left its mark. Individual believers are encouraged to be fully involved in worship and the exercise of spiritual gifts, with the exception of the gift of prophecy, which is permitted as long as it is supportive of the leadership.

Next week: The final three characteristics of pop culture are compared to the Church: sensuousness, lawlessness and power.

First published 1995. Revised and serialised November 2017. You can find previous instalments in this series here.

We begin to serialise an older classic on the charismatic movement.

We are pleased this week to begin re-publishing ‘Blessing the Church?’, which was written in the mid-1990s as an in-depth response to the ‘Toronto Blessing’ and the perceived excesses of the modern charismatic movement.

When it was published in 1995, ‘Blessing the Church?’ made a seminal contribution to the debate on the direction of the charismatic movement, as well as to teaching on deception within the Body of Christ. Though written in response to a particular set of circumstances more than 20 years ago, its message stands the test of time. Though a great deal has changed since the 1990s, sadly even more has stayed the same.

We will be serialising the book over the next eight weeks and commend it to you warmly.^1,2 We believe it should be foundational reading for all who are interested in understanding the background of the contemporary charismatic movement, and so the shape it is in today. Indeed, it is commended to any believer who is passionate about seeing the Body of Christ grow and flourish as Messiah Jesus intended.

Dr Frances Rabbitts

Managing Editor, Prophecy Today UK

Blessing the Church? Introduction

Rev Dr Clifford Hill

Few observers of the Church scene would deny that the 1990s proved to be a critical period for the charismatic movement.

The publication of books and articles speaking about a crisis within the movement proliferated. Hank Hanegraaff in Christianity in Crisis (Harvest House, 1993) carried out extensive research of the teaching given by a number of prominent charismatic leaders. He looked at their statements in comparison with Scripture and found that many of them were contrary to the Bible.

There was growing anxiety, not simply among reformed evangelicals, but among many within the charismatic movement, concerning a serious drift away from biblical principles. Of course, there will always be differences of interpretation and textual exegesis. But differences in interpretation cannot account for statements which are directly contrary to those found in the Bible.

The charismatic movement has been a tremendous blessing to millions of Christians who have found a new freedom in worship and a deeper personal relationship with God which has strengthened their faith and enabled them to participate more actively in the work of the Gospel.

However, the emphasis upon personal experience which broke the icy grip of traditionalism in most branches of the Church has also had its down side, as charismatics have been carried along on waves of excitement into deeper realms of experience. Any movement or teaching which offers the believer a deeper personal experience with the living God is highly attractive. Yet when experience parts company with sound biblical teaching, there is grave danger for the believer. There is strong evidence that this is what happened within the charismatic movement during the 1990s and, in various waves and guises, has continued since.

When experience parts company with sound biblical teaching, there is grave danger for the believer. 

The Toronto Blessing

The wave of spiritual experience that began in 1994 known as the ‘Toronto Blessing’ has received worldwide publicity. In Britain a number of books were on the market within months of the first appearance of the phenomenon. These offered uncritical and excited accounts of what was variously described as ‘revival’, ‘pre-revival’, ‘times of refreshing’, the ‘impartation of supernatural power’ and numerous other descriptions.

There were many published accounts of the benefits of the 'blessing' in the lives of believers. Many testified that they had been drawn into closer communion with God, a deeper commitment to prayer, to Bible study and renewed love for Jesus. At the same time there were many accounts of bizarre phenomena such as making animal noises and uncontrollable physical manifestations including screaming and vomiting which many charismatics did not believe could be the work of the Holy Spirit.

At the height of the Toronto Blessing many churches gave scant attention to the preaching and expounding of the word of God. In some cases, this was enforced due to the preacher becoming overcome by physical convulsions which rendered him incapable of speech. Many charismatics shook their heads and said surely God would not hinder the proclamation of his own word! Others were greatly excited by these strange activities and participated enthusiastically in the 'receiving meetings' where the emphasis was upon receiving 'more of God'.

Divisive Effect

In Britain, the Toronto Blessing resulted in the most widespread and deep-rooted division to hit the Church for many years. This division was not between believers and unbelievers, or between evangelical and liberal; it was a division among charismatics themselves. It brought division in the families of believers, it divided prayer groups, it brought division and splits within congregations and it divided church from church even within the same denomination.

In Britain, the Toronto Blessing resulted in the most widespread and deep-rooted division to hit the Church for many years. 

There is evidence of thousands of Spirit-filled believers leaving their churches and being forced to seek other places of worship or simply meeting in little ad hoc house fellowships, or even going nowhere while nursing the hurts of rejection by leaders who refused to hear any questioning of the bizarre activities in their congregation. This division contrasts strangely with the experience of the disciples recorded in Acts chapters 2-5, when, from the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit brought sweet unity, love and sharing among the believers.

Background to ‘Blessing the Church?’

It was out of a deep concern for love and unity in those churches which have experienced the renewing power of the Holy Spirit in recent years that two leadership consultations were called at Bawtry Hall in Yorkshire in January and March 1995. It was out of the papers given at those consultations and the subsequent discussion that ‘Blessing the Church?’ arose.

Its strength lay in the fact that all the writers were not only evangelical preachers of many years' experience, but that they were each convinced of the presence, the power and the activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church today, and that spiritual gifts may be exercised by all believers. All wrote, therefore, from within the charismatic movement, not as hostile observers from outside.

All the writers – Clifford Hill, Peter Fenwick, David Forbes and David Noakes - had been involved in leadership in the charismatic movement from the early days. We wrote, not in the spirit of judgmental-ism, or indeed with a negative critical attitude. Rather we wrote out of a deep concern, for the Church in which we had leadership responsibilities and for the future direction being taken by the charismatic movement.

The prime purpose in writing was to draw attention to what we considered to be a serious drift away from biblically-based teaching into the realm of experientialism. This led to the pernicious practice of using contemporary 'revelation' as the basis for doctrine and the justification for the formulation of new teaching and practice within the Church which has no biblical foundation.

We wrote out of deep concern for the Church and for the future direction being taken by the charismatic movement. 

Each of the writers undertook in-depth research examining our own teaching and practice and a searching re-evaluation and re-assessment in the light of biblical scholarship. Our study of the Bible led each of us to extend our personal re-evaluation to include current practices across the whole spectrum of the charismatic movement and to an examination in some detail of the underlying teaching. It is out of the fruit of this examination that this book was written. It contains a message which we believe to be of vital importance in these days.

We recognise our own failings as leaders and our proneness to go astray in days when there are enormous pressures from the world around us and when we do not see very much to encourage us from the fruit of our labours. We therefore wrote in a spirit of love and humility under the deep conviction that the Bible provides us with the only standard of truth that can guard us against error, false doctrine, wrong practices and unrighteous behaviour.

Dangers Facing the Church

It is our earnest hope that what we have written will be received by our brothers and sisters in Christ in the same spirit of love and humility in which we have written – today, as much as when it was first published.

Inevitably, in our examination of contemporary teaching in the charismatic movement we had to note those leaders who were most closely associated with its propagation. Our task, however, was not to make accusations against brothers in Christ, but rather to contend for the faith which we all hold to be precious and to warn where we saw teaching which is seriously at variance with Scripture. Such teaching opens the door to all kinds of error and aberrant practices.

There is grave danger today of the Church being infiltrated by New Age teaching and the charismatic movement is not immune from this danger. Neither is it immune, if it drifts away from a strict adherence to the Bible as the plumb-line of divine revelation and truth, from straying into the realms of cultic activity.

Our warnings are sounded in days of great danger for the Church. In the Western industrialised nations, we are faced with the continuing onslaught of secularism and rising hostility to the Gospel in the context of increasing lawlessness and social decay. On the world scene Islamic fundamentalism and the use of violence to achieve their objectives is a continuing menace to the spread of the Gospel and is resulting in many thousands of Christian martyrs each year.

Yet the worldwide Church continues to grow through tremendous spiritual awakenings in many of the poorest nations. The greatest threat to their faith is the spread of Westernisation and what we in the West have come to recognise as ‘pop culture' - the culture of easy affluence, sensuous self-indulgence and acquisitive materialism driven by moral and spiritual anarchy.

Our warnings are sounded in days of great danger for the Church. 

It is in the context of the contemporary world situation and our deep desire to see the re-evangelisation of the Western nations, our own longings for revival and our unshakeable belief in the activity of the Holy Spirit among us in the Church today that we wrote ‘Blessing the Church?’.

We call to our brothers and sisters in Christ to recognise the dangerous situation which still faces us; and to recognise also that our emphasis upon the experiential within the charismatic movement has led us away from the doctrinal basis of the faith which our forefathers held to be of supreme importance. We therefore plead for a re-examination of current teaching and practice among charismatics in all branches of the Church and a recognition that the Bible provides us with the only plumb-line of truth.

Our analysis required examining the teaching of a number of those who minister within the charismatic/evangelical churches. Inevitably in so doing we had to name names. Our purpose was to compare what was being taught with what the Bible says. Our aim was not to discredit these men or to invalidate their ministries. Rather, it is still our hope that what we have written will contribute to the ongoing theological debate within the charismatic movement.

Although this book was written against the background of the debate on the Toronto Blessing, its scope is much wider. All the writers saw Toronto as merely the latest step in a continuing process of an overemphasis upon experience and a neglect of sound biblical teaching. We therefore attempted to look at the antecedents of Toronto rather than the phenomenon itself.

What Will Follow

What we undertook was essentially to re-trace our steps to the early days of the charismatic movement. We looked at the introduction of different teachings, beliefs and practices at different stages in its development.

Over the next seven weeks Prophecy Today UK will re-publish this work, starting with an examination of the rise of the movement in the context of the social history and secular culture in which it gained momentum. Subsequent articles will examine restorationist beliefs, the Latter Rain Revival movement of the 1940s in North America and its influence on charismatic doctrine, and the development of the charismatic movement itself – including its direction and the kinds of prophecies that have come through it.

Our writers draw many penetrating insights from Scripture which illuminate the Church’s situation during the 1990s – and which undoubtedly still have relevance today.

Next week: A child of the age? The socio-cultural background of the charismatic movement.

First published in 1995. Updated and serialised October 2017.

Notes

1 If you are interested in purchasing a paper copy, limited numbers are still available on Amazon at the time of publishing.

2 We have revised the text where necessary to update it for 2017 web publication, but have tried to keep these revisions minimal.

Continuing our series on the spiritual ‘manifestations’ of 1 Corinthians 12.

This article is part of a series. Click here to access the archive.

“Anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God” (1 Corinthians 14:2)

“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good… to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues” (1 Corinthians 12:7-10)

Speaking in tongues is recorded in the New Testament as occurring at the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4) and on two other occasions (Acts 10:44-46 and Acts 19:1-6) as the early Church grew, but it is also listed as a spiritual manifestation by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12. It not only was misunderstood by believers in the early Church but also has created division in the Church down through the ages.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul does list an accompanying gift of ‘interpretation of tongues’ to go alongside, so that others who hear the manifestation of tongues can also be blessed – that is, they are both intended to be for the common good. But even the understanding of this has led to some confusion.

What is Speaking in Tongues?

The word glossa (Greek for language or tongue) appears in the Greek New Testament more than 50 times, most of which refer to known languages. It is also used when referring to the flames of fire shaped like ‘tongues’ (glossa) which appeared over the believers at Pentecost (Acts 2:3) and at least once in a metaphorical sense when referring to speech, “my tongue (glossa, speech) was glad (joyous)” (Acts 2:26).

In academia, the term ‘glossolalia’¹ is used to identify the phenomenon of speaking in an unknown language, or with language-like sounds, and is made up of the Greek glossa and lalia (speech). Often this is used in reference to the pagan practice of ‘ecstatic utterances’ - unintelligible, language-like sounds given while in a state of ecstasy.²

There is an incident in 1 Samuel 10:5-11 which many biblical scholars believe to be an early example of glossolalia being used in worship. Before he became king, Saul met a procession of prophets playing a variety of musical instruments and “prophesying”. We don’t know exactly what was happening but some think it is reasonable to interpret this as an example of ecstatic praise and worship.

The gift of tongues was misunderstood by early believers and has created division in the Church down through the ages.

Ecstasy is observed in many pagan religions around the world, in which it involves the generation of mystical insights by holy men, often by entering a trance. It is an ancient practice found among the shamans in the Sudan, the Shango cult of the West Coast of Africa, the Zor cult of Ethiopia, the Voodoo cult in Haiti and the Aborigines of South America and Australia. Some care should be taken in creating a distinction between pagan ecstatic utterances emanating from a trance and the biblical gift of speaking in tongues.

To be more specific, ‘xenoglossia’ (or ‘xenolalia’) is the ability to speak spontaneously and fluently in a language the speaker has never learned, but is nevertheless a known language. This interpretation is taken from Acts 2:8 when believers were enabled to speak in the languages of the many other nationalities present in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost. They “were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them…a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.”

Just Earthly Languages?

Many Christians who speak in tongues today believe that they are speaking a language that is not similar to any known earthly tongue but rather is a heavenly tongue. The usefulness of tongues as a personal prayer language is when we run out of human words to express our thoughts to God. This is what Paul refers to when he says “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” (Rom 8:26). It may sound like gibberish to unbelievers, but God understands what we are trying to express.

The practice of speaking in tongues was heard frequently in the church at Corinth in the 1^st Century AD but has been experienced rarely down the ages, until the 19^th Century when it was accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) and then by Pentecostals in the early 20^th Century, followed by Charismatics as the century progressed, since when it is being much more widespread amongst Christians.

The usefulness of tongues as a personal prayer language is when we run out of human words to express our thoughts to God.

TO God – Not FROM God

It is important to understand that neither of these two manifestations, speaking in tongues and their interpretation, are God speaking to us, and so should not be confused with prophetic words. Speaking in tongues is a praise and prayer language addressed to God: “Anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God” (1 Cor 14:2).

This is the one manifestation of the Holy Spirit which involves us speaking to God, rather than God speaking to us. It enables us to praise God more than we can do in the flesh – it enables us to “utter mysteries by the Spirit” (1 Cor 14:2), which are not understood by others unless they are interpreted by those who are enabled by the Spirit to do so.

Private or Public? Both!

Speaking in tongues can be very uplifting, especially when used in private devotions, as believers can speak as often as they wish and are free to choose whether they will pray or praise with their minds or with their spirits, i.e. in tongues: “I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding” (1 Cor 14:15). This verse goes on: “I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding”. Singing in tongues is often very moving, adding greatly to any corporate act of worship as it becomes a shared experience.

In a public meeting Paul reminds us that this worship needs to be orderly, "For God is not a God of disorder but of peace" (verse 33). He recommends that only a few should share their worship in tongues at any one time and, in order that others can be edified and be able to say ‘Amen’ to these prayers to God, they should be interpreted or translated.

This is the one manifestation of the Holy Spirit which involves us speaking to God, rather than God speaking to us.

Worshippers should have control over how and when they speak in tongues as although it is a manifestation given as and when the Spirit wills, it is a phenomenon in which believers speak with God, without losing their own self-control and personhood.

Interpretation

The manifestation of interpretation of tongues is given so that the Body of Christ may not remain perplexed and unedified, but may be built up. A translation will enable the congregation to get the gist of what was expressed in the tongue, so that they too can share in the prayer or praise - without this it will be impossible to add a meaningful 'Amen!' (1 Cor 14:16). Neither tongues nor interpretation should ever disrupt a service, but should contribute to it.

Paul reminds the believers that “If the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?” (1 Cor 14:23). So interpretation is necessary when others are present. However, like tongues the interpretation will always be TO God – and never a message from him. It will enable all to praise God with their minds, which will enrich their own worship in the future.

Misuse – Ancient and Modern Errors

It is obvious from the letters that Paul wrote to the early churches, especially to those in Corinth (e.g. 1 Cor 11-14) that errors were coming into the Church on this subject and that it was causing division. Paul’s responsive teaching can help us from going astray.

James also reminds us of the danger of the physical organ the tongue, if uncontrolled:

…the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. (James 3:5-10)

Paul also reminds us that none of the gifts or manifestations are of any value unless they are manifested with love (1 Cor 13:1) – in fact, without love “I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal”.

Speaking in tongues enables us to praise God more than we can do in the flesh – it enables us to “utter mysteries by the Spirit” (1 Cor 14:2).

False Teaching

In the early days of Pentecostalism, in the 1920s, a tradition developed that tongues should be followed by a 'message' which was regarded as the interpretation. This was carried over into the charismatic movement of the 1960s and sometimes resulted in words purporting to be ‘prophecy’ being accepted without being either tested for their origin or weighed, with unfortunate results. This was directly against Paul’s teaching that “anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God” (1 Cor 14:2) and his instruction that all prophecy must be weighed (1 Thess 5:21).

God does not need to disguise his words to us in a strange language. He can and does communicate directly with believers in words that all can understand. Tongues can help in expressing our innermost thoughts and praise to God, when we simply do not have words to express what is in our hearts.

As tongues is a manifestation, given as the Spirit wills, and not a permanent gift, many churches today allow it but do not encourage it in public worship. Cessationists, on the other hand, believe that all the gifts and manifestations were restricted to the New Testament period only.

Does Speaking in Tongues Come with Baptism?

Paul indicated that new believers would receive the Holy Spirit when they first believed (Acts 19:2). New Testament teaching is that whoever believes, repents and is baptised will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Repentance and conversion are essential pre-requisites for this.

However, the ability to speak in tongues, though given by the Spirit, is not an essential sign of receiving the Spirit. Though this is often taught in Pentecostal churches, it cannot be supported from the New Testament.

In the biblical record of the early Church, tongue-speaking was not seen as a common every-day occurrence, but rather a miraculous sign for special occasions (as at Pentecost) as the apostles preached the Gospel and the Church extended. Paul’s teaching was that the gift of tongues is not important for salvation although it can have some importance for edifying the individual and the Church. But even in this role he said that prophesying is much more important: “He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church” (1 Cor 14:4).

The ability to speak in tongues, though given by the Spirit, is not an essential sign of receiving the Spirit – neither is it a permanent gift, but a manifestation, given as the Spirit wills.

It would appear that Paul’s practice was to use tongues privately in his personal intercessions, but not in the assembly of believers (the church). He says, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in the church, I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue” (1 Cor 14:18-19).

Mark’s version of the Great Commission (Mark 16:15-18) lists the signs that will accompany the baptism of those who believe, many of which are other gifts of the Holy Spirit that might enable witnessing to be more effective. Next week we will move on to looking at the last three of the manifestations from 1 Corinthians 12, focusing especially on how they are given for the common good.

References

1 'Glossology' is that department of Anthropology which has to do with the study and classification of languages and dialects.

2 Unlike the biblical gift of tongues, some research conducted by the Lutheran Medical Centre has demonstrated that glossolalia can be learned by following simple instructions or by imitating a semblance of words said by others. See Got Questions' page on glossolalia, here.

Monica Hill begins the final portion of her series on the spiritual gifts.

This article is part of a series. Click here for the full archive.

“Now to each one, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good…”

Having spent some time studying the spiritual gifts in three of the lists given in the New Testament we come now to the most controversial and most often misunderstood list in 1 Corinthians 12.

They are controversial because these gifts were neglected for many centuries, especially in the West once the Church was established, as they were felt to be relevant to the 1st Century Church only. They were misunderstood when re-discovered by the Pentecostal movement at the beginning of the 20^th Century, and even now there can be various interpretations of the meaning of these more experiential gifts.

Setting in Context

We need to start first by looking at the context in which Paul delivered his teaching on this list of nine ‘gifts’ – which more rightly should be termed ‘manifestations’ of the Spirit. This comes from the Greek pneumatikon, which has connotations of invisibility and power. Some of these ‘manifestations’ sound very similar to the gifts we have already studied, but they are also very different.

The Corinthian church was not a united community of believers and they must have caused Paul much heartache. He had to battle not only against a strong Greek culture and systemic thinking but also against immoral behaviour in the church, which affected its witness.

The manifestations of the Holy Spirit were neglected in the Church for many centuries.

Practical Help

1 Corinthians is a very practical book and shows Paul’s concern for this infant community, especially when there was so much division among the members. One of his practical concerns was very much for the use (or against the misuse) of the gifts or manifestations he lists in chapter 12.

In chapter 11 he endeavoured to get relationships in the church right and was especially concerned about the behaviour of its members in their worship times and when celebrating the Lord’s Supper. His concern was to combat their brazen concentration on themselves rather than thinking of others and this is reflected through the next two or three chapters.

Call for Unity

The ‘manifestations’ listed in chapter 12 have an emphasis on unity and use for ‘the common good’. They emphasise that the gifts are all coming from the same Spirit, although they may be of different kinds.

No one person owns these gifts (1 Cor 12:11) – they are available to any true believer and are only given as the Spirit wishes. As Edmund Heddle says “The initiative in the operation of these gifts must remain in the hands of the Spirit and once his purpose is completed the manifestation of the gift will cease”.¹

The Body of Christ

There then follows the lovely passage from verse 12 to the end of the chapter about the Body of Christ being many parts but still only one. Its analogy with the human body – every part is needed and none is more important than the others – is well worth reading and emphasising again and again.

The chapter concludes with a series of rhetorical questions. The translation of verse 31 can be confusing in some versions. I personally do not think it should be read as a challenge for believers to strive for the greater gifts - in view of the arguments that these are given by the Holy Spirit as he sees fit, how can this be? Rather, I believe that it is ridiculing what the Corinthians were trying to be seen doing and goes on to show them the better way of love.

As such, a better translation of 1 Corinthians 12:31 is “But you are striving for the greater gifts! And now I will show you the most excellent thing”. The love poem that follows in chapter 13 is not an intrusion into this section on spiritual gifts but complements it superbly. It can be used for individuals and is of course perfect for marriages - but do read it again thinking particularly of its relation to the use of gifts in the fellowship of believers.

No one person owns these gifts – they are available to any true believer and are only given as the Spirit wishes.

Practicalities

In chapter 14 we look again at the practicalities arising when the Corinthian assembly were using (or misusing) some of the most controversial of the manifestations – gifts of prophecy and tongues. Note how Paul attempted to deliver good teaching from a distance, some of which we will use when we study these specific manifestations in detail.

Need for Harmony

In the next few weeks we will be looking at the nine gifts mentioned here – but we will be looking at them in groups, as none of them should stand alone. Those speaking in tongues need others with the gift of interpretation alongside them; those prophesying need others to distinguish between the spirits bringing the prophetic words and a special kind of faith is needed for gifts of healing and miraculous powers.

When these work in harmony, the Lord’s name will be praised and blessed.

References

1 Heddle, E, 2016. Spiritual Gifts. Issachar Ministries, p16.

Monica Hill turns from the ‘natural’ gifts (Romans 12) to the ‘ministry’ gifts listed in Ephesians 4. This article is part of a series – click here for previous instalments. 

“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:11-13)

We have already noted that there are four lists of the Spiritual Gifts given by the Holy Spirit in different epistles – Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Peter 4 (which concentrates on methods) and Ephesians 4. Each of them have additional teaching in the surrounding verses on how they should operate within the corporate body of believers – often relevant to that specific understanding of the gifts.

The Five-Fold Ministry

The five ‘ministry gifts’ listed in Ephesians 4 are surrounded by teaching on the place of these quite specific roles within the body. Two things stand out of which we need to take note:

1. First, ideally these gifts are meant to operate together, as a team – the five-fold ministry is an entity in itself, and all its gifts should be visible in the leadership of our churches and fellowships today. If Christian communities do not recognise these gifts in specific individuals, at least the principles and values of each should be adopted. Team ministry is not easy and needs to be embraced and worked upon. If this does not happen, one or other of these roles will inevitably take precedence. For example:
   1. For many centuries in the Western Church, pastors and teachers have been predominant, to the neglect of the other roles.
   2. Evangelists have often set up separate, para-Church organisations, and are often felt only to be needed for overseas work - which means that work among nominal Christians has been neglected.
   3. Apostles and prophets are still very rare, with many believing that apostolic ministry died out at the end of the New Testament era. Although they are now receiving more attention these ministries are often misunderstood and can create problems.
   4. Individual prophets in the style of the Old Testament were also relegated to history as it was anticipated that, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, the whole Church would become the Prophet to the nations. An understanding even of the role of the prophet, within fellowships and wider afield, is often missing.
2. Secondly, these roles are given to serve the Body and to help those to whom they are called, to enable all to grow to maturity and be found worthy of being called followers of Christ. They are not given to give status to individuals.

There is no mention of these gifts operating in this way in a worldly sense (unlike the ‘natural’ gifts of Romans 12). Apart from the role of a teacher they do not have secular counterparts, although the world has at times tried to pick up the same values and take them into secular occupations – but more of that when we look at each of them in detail. Leadership in the world is based on very different principles.

In this introduction we will be looking at the context of the introduction of Ministry gifts in the Body of believers and seeing how these gifts should operate.

The ministry gifts are designed to operate together to serve and build up the Body of Christ.

Lessons from Ephesus

The whole of Ephesians is concerned with building up the body of believers in Ephesus, from which we can learn so much. The epistle starts with an emphasis upon Christ as the Head of the whole Christian community - the Church, or (more accurately) the Body of Believers (Eph 1:22-23) (not the institutions), which is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph 2:20-24) and is without any divisions, comprising one Body and one Spirit (Eph 4:4). Members are encouraged to “live a life worthy of the calling” (Eph 4:1), given various instructions on how to act (Eph 5-6) and finally encouraged to “put on the whole armour of God” (Eph 6:10-18).

It is worth noting that Paul has just given that beautiful prayer to God for his brothers and sisters in Ephesus (Eph 3:14-21) which is still such an encouragement to all who read it today. His next words express not only his own total commitment to the Father but his desire that all should “live a life worthy of the calling you have received”. The way to do this is to “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace”.

The Priesthood of All Believers

Here is no definition of a hierarchy, an ‘us and them’ or a ‘pecking order’ as so often seen in our churches, but a recognition that we need each other (which is described more fully in 1 Corinthians 12). The sole purpose of these ministry roles is to serve the body of believers so that they can all become mature and be the front line of mission.

The New Testament Church operated as a ‘priesthood of all believers’ – they had a different vision from that practised in Judaism when the Temple was in operation and priests were in control and acted as mediators with God. But even after the birth of the Church and the early days of taking the mission worldwide, it was not very long before the established denominations re-introduced a priestly leadership into churches.

In the priesthood of all believers, there is no hierarchy or pecking order – just a recognition that we all need each other.

Many new movements have since tried to re-capture this concept of the priesthood of all believers, but far too often institutionalisation pushes them back into the need for strong leadership aligned with worldly principles.

The ministry gifts are essentially serving roles - encouraging and empowering others – so that everyone is encouraged to have that direct relationship with the Father themselves and can discern the truth – so that they are “no longer infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.”

Ingredients for Full Community Life

The ministries described in Ephesians can be seen as leading roles in the community, but they should also encompass vision, strategy and unity - all essential for any community’s survival. It is not a necessary requirement that the leader has to be the one who has the original vision, but he or she must embrace it and make it their own – just as everyone else in the body must; and likewise with the strategy and action that follows – these two aspects must both be embraced to help form a community and give it its raison d’etre. But often the ministry role also provides the glue that makes people stick together in unity.

Truth and love are essential ingredients to any community of believers – so that “we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Eph 4:15-16).

Unity is expressed in “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:4-6).

In the next few weeks we will be looking at each of the specific ministry gifts given to the Body of believers – Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher - and exploring further the reasons for which they are given and the way they should operate and relate to each other.